WRITING &
EDITORIAL

INFORMATION
PRODUCTION

GENERAL DIGITAL
PRODUCTION

Writing, Editing, & Rewrite   |   Research   |   Naming

 

WRITING, EDITING, & REWRITE

As business and industry are well aware, not every subject-matter expert has the language skills needed for business and technical communications. It is recognized that, with increasing frequency, problems arise when people in business are unable to convey information even face-to-face to their colleagues. In the case of internal, face-to-face, communications, things usually get sorted out somehow, eventually. But when you’re communicating with a user, customer, or prospect a thousand or ten thousand miles away, letting things “get sorted out somehow, eventually” doesn’t work very well—especially if your competitors are communicating with them too.
      A professional language mechanic—a writer or editor—has to be good with words in the ordinary way. But that’s just the start. Professional communications means you’re not just talking to your colleagues, your friends, or to people with similar backgrounds and cultural preferences. A professional writer or editor is familiar with aspects of communications that few people think of, and has learned a body of professional knowledge that provides the basis for detailed techniques for making communications of all sorts as effective as possible with the widest possible variety of readers.
       A professional writer or editor will have studied, and have extensive experience in, the minute details of the way all the elements of language—each word, each punctuation mark, each manner of phrasing, each writing style, each graphic device for organizing text—work in many different combinations with other elements, and in many different situations.
      The practical techniques that embody that knowledge aren’t the simplistic “rules” that most people think of when they think of writing and grammar. Those popular “rules” are so simplistic that they don’t work even in many common situations, which gives rise to the popular belief that the rules have to be broken frequently. Writing based on that belief isn’t very effective, however.
      A professional word mechanic is familiar with a whole complex of rules, sub-rules, and meta-rules that point to the best ways to use each element of language in different situations—as well as more rules, sub-rules, and meta-rules that point to the best tradeoff when other rules conflict, or when compromises have to be made for practical reasons.
      It’s also a question of fitting the words, and the way they are used, to the facts the words have to convey. A good professional writer or editor (or proofreader) is typically a person with a curious mind who has acquired a wide range of knowledge. Thus he always has some reference points for the subject matter he is working on, reference points that will lead him to the questions that need to be asked in order to learn anything else he may need to know. In addition to factual knowledge, well-developed analytical ability is needed, to avoid false inferences and discover how best to apply the facts to the present writing assignment.

My editorial experience includes work for reference, scholarly, and general trade publishers, as well as ad agencies and corporations. I also document technical matters in my own fields (resumés, typography, technical digital communications production) for clients and others. Professional editorial experience means that I can apply my English and foreign-language skills in a professional manner, walking into a project and efficiently producing all sorts of communications for all sorts of audiences.
      I am accustomed to editing and rewriting important communications (such as informational and publicity copy, proposals, reports, and correspondence) to ensure clarity and consistency of thought and language, and a rational (and therefore persuasive and credible) succession of ideas.
      If desired, I can go beyond this to make suggestions about the basic concepts of the piece. And if the piece is to be given a finished typographic presentation, I can of course provide services or input for that.

Corporate, consulting, technical, advertising, and scholarly clients appreciate my ability to make their messages clearer and more effective, and point out potentially serious errors and inconsistencies, while respecting their own special knowledge and avoiding anything that amounts to second-guessing them.

PROOFREADING

There’s a lot more to proofreading than just reading—no matter how well educated you are. That’s why, historically, proofreading has been regarded as a distinct craft, and often one of the better paid and more independent crafts in communications.
      A good proofreader will have most or all of the skills and knowledge of a professional editor. The proofreader’s mind and eye will also be thoroughly trained, even more than an editor’s, to notice and process every single mark on the page, and to consider them in relation to the function of nearby marks and to the sense of the text.
      That’s just for editorial proofreading. There’s another kind of proofreading, in some ways even more demanding (and, historically, much better paid). This is typographic proofreading. A good, widely experienced typographic proofreader will have much or most of the editorial knowledge that an editorial proofreader has. He will also have a curious mind and a good store of miscellaneous knowledge, though he may not be as well-read as the editorial proofreader. Above all, a typographic proofreader is a typographer—master of a range of typographic knowledge that is rarely found today. That knowledge is needed to make sure not only that the text is correct, but that every small detail of the graphic presentation is correct. It is those small details that add up to a consistently readable, functional, professional-looking document that consistently follows the style required for publications of a given type, so that it can function smoothly as part of a larger body of related literature.

I’ve worked for publishers as an editorial proofreader, and also, for ten years, as a typographic proofreader for type shops, ad agencies, and design studios in New York City. For the agencies and studios, I often combined editorial and typographic proofreading, as well as higher-level editing and rewrite. I bring the perspective of an editor and proofreader to every job I do.