Our 'Christmas in July' Annual General Meeting and dinner in the Common Room, University House, on Wednesday 30 July is almost here.
Enjoy mulled wine in front of an open fire from 6.00 p.m. The AGM will start at 6.30 p.m. Dinner will consist of a hot carvery, vegetables, salads and plum pudding. Tea and coffee is included in the cost of $39.50 per person. Remember to bring a small, inexpensive, wrapped gift to swap-no more than $2.50, please. Make it fun and imaginative!
To book for the AGM, and for the dinner, contact Helen Topor on email <helen.topor@cit.act.edu.au>, or phone 62073414 (work) or 62928016 (home). If you have special dietary requirements, please let Helen know asap.
Annual General Meeting
Plaudits for proofreading course
The President's column
One thing and another ... plain English revisited
Time to smile
Committee news
Dates for your diary
Deadlines and copyright
In a big, airy room at the Downer Business Centre, the engaging Helen Topor made a Friday afternoon before a long weekend whiz by while taking a roomful of us through the intricacies of proofreading. If you too are one of those people that can't pass a greengrocer's without one of those curious words such as mandrains or potatoes leaping out and smacking you between the eyes, then welcome to the world of the obsessive-compulsive - proofreading may be the career for you! With good humour and charm, Helen used a comfortable balance of listening and hands-on exercises to lead us through the purpose of proofreading, when and how it's done, and traps for young players. Twenty or so of us from a variety of backgrounds were happily engaged in a variety of tasks: assessing our own aptitude for close comparison and checking (does the fact that I got all sixteen of the discrepancies between our two cartoons mean that I should start taking the medication again?); using the arcane marks of the professional proofreader; and doing a longer exercise in marking up copy.
Now here's something I picked up: if I said to you 'big beanfeast at my place on Friday the 26th of June', would you turn up on the Friday or the Thursday ( the 26th)? Most of us agreed Friday - something to be wary of in the checking of dates.
Lucy Tylman
This should be my last column. My two-year term is up, and I hope that there will be someone waiting to take the reins at the annual general meeting on 30 July. Our rules of association stipulate that no office-bearer (i.e. president, vice president, secretary and treasurer) may hold the same position for more than two consecutive years.
Also ending this month is Pete Martensz's term as treasurer, so that's another crucial position that must be filled.
A nomination form for committee positions accompanies this newsletter. If extra copies are needed, go to our website at <www.editorscanberra.org>. All other members of the current committee have offered themselves for re-election at the AGM, but any full or life member can be nominated for any position and any member for non-executive positions. The panel to the left lists the current committee.
I have to say that, when I ended up in the president's position a couple of years ago, I was full of trepidation. I needn't have been, because with the support of the rest of the committee and the members, the experience turned out to be not just challenging but also rewarding and enjoyable. I recommend it to anyone with that extra interest in the society and the profession, and who is willing and able to put into the task involved the few hours per week that are needed.
To save time at the AGM, I'll present here a brief annual report. Keep in mind that this 'year' has been shorter than previous ones because we have moved the annual meeting forward, from September to July. We decided to do this primarily because we have adopted accrual accounting practices, which obviate the need for a long reconciliation period at the end of the financial year. The society's incorporatlon on 25 October 2002 was also a factor influencing the decision to bring forward the annual meeting.
We've had a varied program for meetings over the past year. In October 2002, our speaker was Susan Hampton, who introduced us to the mysteries of 'data migration' and entertained us with anecdotes of her experiences as web editor at the ACCC. Susan, who is a member of the society, has also done quite a deal of fiction editing.
In November we had our end-of-year barbecue at Telopea Park. This was, for various reasons, poorly attended, and therefore not as successful as the same event the year before. Those who came enjoyed themselves nevertheless. This year, with the imprimatur of the new committee, the plan is to revert to a more formal function at which we will, among other things, announce the winner of the 2003 Award for Excellence in Editing.
Following the Christmas break, we were all geared up for a motivational talk from Kerry Nairn in February. Unfortunately, our speaker took ill just before the meeting. We therefore extemporised and had, as it turned out, a quite productive discussion on various matters, most significantly the activities of the accreditation working group of the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE). Janet Salisbury, our delegate to the working group, led the latter discussion.
In March, our guest was the well-known Canberra author (and editor) Marion Halligan, who spoke about her latest published novel, The Point, and a work in progress in which an editor is the lead player. A joint meeting with Canberra members of the Australian Society of Indexers was the main event in April. I think that this joint meeting was very useful and that if the linkages between our two societies are nurtured there will be long-term benefits to both groups.
The speaker at our May meeting was Amanda Laugesen, a historian at the National Dictionary Research Centre within the ANU (and a society member). Amanda told us about the work for her book, Convict words: language in early colonial Australia, and for a glossary of First World War slang, and her current research on Australian war slang from the Boer War to Vietnam. In June, before a short quiz organised by Kerry MacDermott, we heard from Janet Salisbury with a little more about accreditation. Janet also told us something about the conference of the European Association of Science Editors that she had recently attended in Bath, UK.
As I said, a varied program. Total membership of the society fell slightly over the past year, with 4 resignations and several subscriptions not renewed. We welcomed 6 new full members, 14 new associate members and I student member. Just this month, we signed up our first corporate member, the Department of the Parliamentary Library. Total membership at the end of June was 170. Perhaps the new committee could look at casting our membership net wider, through the mainstream media. How do people find out about us? Are there people in editorial work out there who don't know about us?
The presentation by Treasurer Martensz at the AGM will show that the society's financial position is solid, and that the increased subscription fees for the new year will further cement it, providing that membership numbers hold up. As usual, there is a great deal of tardiness among members in renewing their subscriptions, which makes one think that perhaps we need an incentive for prompt payment. That aside, we now have a significant cash surplus that can be used to provide services and activities that will benefit members and the profession. The first such major activity is the Award for Excellence in Editing that the Society is offering this year for what is judged to be the best-edited annual report published in Canberra. Full details of the award can be found on our website at <www.editorscanberra.org>. The current committee hopes that the award will become an annual event, focusing on a different class of publication each year.
We have had a good training program this year, as training coordinator Cathy Nicoll will report at the AGM. I believe that training is potentially the most important single activity of the society and that a statement to that effect should be incorporated in our objectives. It deserves the strongest support, and a good case could be made for training activities to have first call on the financial and other resources of the society. We have only just begun to tap the market for training; the only restriction on expansion into that market would seem to be the time needed by people who are for the most part volunteers to organise and run courses.
CASE has been very active over the past year. On its behalf, the Society of Editors (Queensland) is hosting a national conference in Brisbane later this month. Canberra editors are strongly supporting the conference: at the latest count, some 15 of us will be attending. A highlight at the conference will be a presentation by CASE's Accreditation Working Group of the scheme it intends to put to all the Australian societies for discussion and, it hopes, ratification. The procedure will be more or less like that adopted for clearing the Australian Standards for Editing Practice in 2001. Some of our members have already seen something of the accreditation proposal at society meetings, and seem generally to be giving it warm support. Should it, or a variant of it, be adopted, it seems to me that the provision of professional training will become even more important than it is now.
Finally, I'd like to thank my fellow committee members for all their hard work for the society over the past year, and for helping to make a president's job easy.
I wish the new team well and look forward to another year of progress for the C SE.
Ed Highley
During recent weeks, I have been conducting courses in effective writing, writing in plain English, plain English at work - one of these programs being under the auspices of the Canberra Society of Editors, a successful venture in entrepreneurship for the society. When people ask for training in 'plain English', they frequently want to learn about those aspects of English grammar that were not taught at school, or were not reinforced if they were taught in primary school. They realise that a good grasp of the mechanics of English is at the root of learning to write plain English. This, in itself, is something of a turnaround in general understanding of what plain English is all about. Ten years ago, I would have been told that the participants didn't want to know about English grammatical structures-that they just wanted to learn how to write plain English, as though the two did not go with each other. The current attitude is healthy- it doesn't separate grammar from plain English.
In order to write plain English, one has to realise that it is not a simple form of English, it is not baby-talk and it is not a different form of English from the form that we use every day in conversation. It is the English we learned as children, at mother's knee and then at school-the code for communication that we share.
The knowledge that we share is knowing that there are naming words and action words, as well as a variety of other kinds of words, and that they are strung together in a very particular order to make sentences that we recognise as acceptable English grammar. We don't necessarily need to know the labels we put on these words and structures, but we do need to know how to use them. Having got the mechanics right, we can then play with the superstructure to make it 'plain', as preferred in business writing, rather than flowery, poetic, academic, or any other style, depending on the reason for writing at all.
There are just a few aspects of style that we need to pay attention to, in order to make writing plain for business readers.* We need to control sentence length because business people don't have time to luxuriate in long-winded Dickensian prose. We need to use rather more active voice than passive because active is direct, clear, unambiguous and shows who is responsible for what. Passive voice has its place, but we need to beware of ducking responsibility when the reader has aright to know who is responsible for certain actions. We need to write our bullet point lists using parallel structure where the message shines through because the structure is totally predictable. We also need to use everyday words-words that we are comfortable using in conversation. It should not be necessary for the reader to consult a dictionary to understand what we are writing about.
We need to vary sentence length and not write sentences that drone on with added-in and added-on subordinate clauses and descriptive phrases. Nor do we want to bore readers with strings of super-short sentences that sound as if they'd been fired rapidly from a pea-shooter.
It's probably better to write 'The Management Committee considered your application but regrets that you were unsuccessful on this occasion' than 'Your application was considered but deemed unsuccessful on this occasion' . The first example indicates who is responsible for the decision while the second does not.
Parallel structure in bullet point lists means that the same structure is used in each point, so that the reader doesn't come upon any nasty surprises in structure- surprises like that can throw you off course and force you to read the sentence again. Parallel structure looks like this:
The training will include:
where each item begins with the same kind of word-in this case, the present participle of a verb. Many people feel that using everyday words is somehow showing themselves up as ill-educated. Not a bit of it! Using everyday words shows consideration for the reader.
Why write 'utilisation' when we could write 'use', or 'domiciliary' when 'home' or 'home-based' is easier and means the same thing? We're not in the business of educating the reader in vocabulary extension - we re aiming to get a message across with as little effort for the reader as possible.
There is nothing new about plain English. I can do no better than quote from a grammar textbook that I picked up in a second-hand book shop - English Grammar by Lindley Murray, first published in 1795 by John and Charles Mozley, Derby, England. My copy is a slightly revised edition dated 1804. Here's what Murray had to say about long and short sentences - not much has changed in two hundred years!
'A train of sentences, constructed in the same manner, and with the same number of members, should never be allowed to succeed one another. A long succession of either long or short sentences should also be avoided; for the ear tires of either of them when too long continued. Whereas, by a proper mixture of long and short periods, and of periods variously constructed, not only the ear is gratified; but animation and force are given to our style.'
Elizabeth Murphy
* These aspects of plain English style are discussed in full in Effective Writing: plain English at work by Elizabeth M. Murphy, first published in Australia in 1989 by Pitman, Melbourne - reprints available from the author.
Thanks from AUSLIG Elizabeth Murphy recently presented a Plain English Writing course to two groups of staff at National Mapping Division of Geoscience Australia. The members of the group all have backgrounds in geography and computing, and are working on the revision and data capture of national topographic maps and data. Although specialised in their work, many of the staff have on-going liaison with a wide cross-section of Australian society - both at the organisational and individual level - to collect information in order to update the maps. Clear and effective communication is paramount.
Elizabeth's ability to impart the principles of good writing, accompanied by practical exercises, has given participants an excellent foundation to build on. Her own book on the subject is a valuable reference. It demystifies the rules governing English expression. Staff now have greater confidence in their writing abilities. In particular, participants found the work on the possessive use of the apostrophe to be most helpful.
Matthew Barwick
AUSLIG
You know you're living in the OOs when:
1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of
three.
4. You e-mail your colleague who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do
not have e-mail addresses.
6. When you go home after along day at work you still answer the
phone in a business manner.
7. Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
8. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a '0'
to get an outside line.
9. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three
different companIes.
10. Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
11. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
12. Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of
your best jokes.
13. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
14. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get
long-service awards.
15. Board members' salaries are higher than all the Third World
countries annual budgets combined.
16. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in
hospital.
17. Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or
experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting
salary.
18. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
19. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your
department desperately needs, but they can afford four full-time
management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.
20. Your relatives and family describe your job as 'works with
computers'.
AND THE CLINCHERS ARE ...
22. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.
23. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your
'friends'.
24. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this
list already, but you don't have time to check so you forward it
anyway.
25. You got this email from a friend that never talks to you anymore,
except to send you jokes from the net.
26. This email has 20 different disclaimer notes at the bottom,
telling you that the information is confidential, but you forward it
anyway.
The main matters discussed at the 20 June committee meeting were:
30 July: Next meeting - the AGM
1 August: August newsletter copy Deadline
18-20 July: National editors' conference
The Canberra Editor is published by
Canberra Society of Editors, PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603.
© Canberra Society of Editors 2002. ISSN 1039-3358
The deadline for the next regular issue is 1 August.
Mail contributions on a 3.5 inch disk, using Word for Windows (essential) or email (preferable), to:
Canberra Society of Editors,
PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603
ara.nalbandian@defence.gov.au
If mailing, always provide a printout as well.
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