President: Elizabeth Manning Murphy AE
Vice-president: Karin Hosking
Secretary: Martin Holmes
Treasurer: Tracy Harwood

Training coordinator: Connie Stamos
Meetings coordinator: Ara Nalbandian
Membership secretary: Margaret Millard
Web manager: Cathy Nicoll AE
Catering coordinator: Liz Phillips and Ted Briggs
Newsletter: Kerie Newell (managing editor), Megan Cope (copyeditor)
General committee members: Leanne Pattison

IPEd delegate: Cathy Nicoll AE
Accreditation delegate: Ted Briggs

Public Officer: Ara Nalbandian

Thanks to all retiring members for their contribution to the society.

In addition to getting the words and images right, they need to consider branding and marketing, websites and social media, film and sound. While considering an array of media options available, this session will discuss how you can maximise the creation of content across multiple platforms with minimal re-formatting by reducing, re-using and recycling.

We’ll consider screen design, alternative and accessible versions, transcripts and text alternatives; and the creation of style sheets to optimise content for different devices like websites, printers and mobile phones – all of this with an editorial and information-curator slant.

(This is an expanded and customised version of presentations David first gave at the Australian Society of Technical Communicators NSW conference and Style Council in 2011.)

Requirements: Participants please bring along your Style guides and/or Design guides. Books and style guides will also be on sale at the venue. Price includes morning tea.

David Whitbread has presented numerous workshops on design for CSE over many years and is the author of The design manual (2nd edition, UNSW Press, 2009) and was the Head of Graphic Design at the University of Canberra and the Design Director of the Australian Government Publishing Service. In 2004, he became the Director of Corporate Communications, then Web and Design for an Australian Government department and is now Corporate Communications Manager for the Australian Government Solicitor.

He was also art director and one of the co-authors of the Australian Government’s Style manual for authors, editors and printers (6th edition, Wiley, 2002) and presented on its design at Style Council 2011.

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Main topics:

• ‘The middleman of dreams’ and the ethics of assessment
• definitions and components
• cost and time
• sample comments and our comments.

The course fee includes morning tea and lunch included. Places are limited, so please register soon.

Pamela Hewitt AE has been involved in editing and publishing for some twenty-five years. After an in-house career in educational and academic editing, she established a freelance editorial practice which includes fiction and non-fiction, as well as educational and mentorship activities. A qualified teacher, Pamela has presented editing and writing programs for universities, vocational educational colleges, writers’ centres, and societies of editors around Australia, in New Zealand and Singapore. She has developed online courses in editing, and coordinates the editing and publications program at USQ.

Register for the course

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E-Mail Address:*

Fee paid:

$220 (member) $320 (non-member)

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Our new training coordinator Connie Stamos is developing an exciting program for this year’s training. Let us know what you’d like to learn this year and we’ll use your feedback to plan our brand new 2012 CSE Training courses.

Training already in the works:

• Web Accessibility
• Using styles and macros in Word
• IPEd accreditation exam preparation
• Grammar refresher

You can give your feedback to Connie through the contact form.

The April general meeting is cancelled because it falls on Anzac Day, a public holiday.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 30 May, with guest speaker Janet Mackenzie, author of The Editor’s Companion.

This is a book that you can dip into or read straight through. If you dip in, you’ll find something interesting or useful within seconds; if you read it straight through, you can feel the author, Elizabeth Manning Murphy, sitting beside you, explaining things gently but clearly, which, according to the preface, is what she hoped to achieve.

Elizabeth lives in Canberra, Australia, and describes herself as ‘having been editing as well as teaching,
coaching and mentoring students of business English, academic writing and linguistics from a variety of cultures and language backgrounds since the 1970s’. She also belongs to the Canberra Society of Editors (CSE), and the contents of this book are based on articles she wrote for the CSE newsletter over a period of ten years – articles that she likens to ‘chats’ between teacher and pupil. Each three-page ‘chat’ deals with one of several topics grouped together in eight parts.

Parts 1 to 3 deal with the craft of editing, ethical and legal considerations, and the business of editing. For someone considering editing as a career, this is a good guide to starting out, dealing with the editor’s job and responsibilities, working on screen and the ‘seven deadly sins’, such as not using reference books, resting on your laurels or, heaven forbid, not being able to find your copy of the Australian Standards for
Editing Practice.

Ethics includes copyright and plagiarism, while ‘The business of editing’ looks at everything from project management, quoting for work, invoicing, writing emails to clients and what to look out for in office furniture and equipment.

Parts 4 and 5 deal with grammar. There is a lot of good stuff in here – a lot less scary than some grammar textbooks, and clearly explained with nice touches of humour. I’ve always wished I could remember more of the Latin I learned at school, but, reading this section, I realise I have a pretty good grasp of grammar, and understand it because of all that Latin.

Part 6 covers punctuation, including commas and colons, apostrophes, hyphens and dashes. Part 7 looks at style, with a particular emphasis on plain English, which Elizabeth points out ‘does not always mean fewer words. Clarity of meaning is paramount’.

The final part of the book is about the future of ‘working words’ and the inevitable changes that happen to language, along with useful pointers on editing English as a second language.

It doesn’t seem to matter that this is written about Australian English, which seems to be more like UK English than, certainly, US English is. It’s a useful book to have on your shelf, if only to remind you what you may already know. My only quibble? I like a spaced en rule for a dash, not Elizabeth’s unspaced em rule – or is that normal Australian style?

Hilary Cadman writes an ‘Onscreen editing’ column for this newsletter. At the meeting on 28 March, Hilary will demonstrate some ways to work faster and more effectively in MS Word, including use of Word add-ins and text expanders.

Hilary Cadman BSc PhD started her working life as a scientist and academic, before retraining as a science communicator and editor. Hilary is the owner of Cadman Editing Services.

They are also offering a Publication management course (for anyone putting together an annual report or other large publication), in Canberra: 19 April.
Contact: If you have any questions about the Biotext courses or would like a quote for workplace
training, please contact Kylie Evans on 02 6282 2280 or email kylie.evans@biotext.com.au.