EDITING DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE
"I commenced the Creative Writing Course with the ACS having had no prior experience in this field whatsoever. Having always been in accounting or payroll jobs, I decided to give the course a go. The course demonstrated to me what I enjoyed writing about, the types of writing I was good at, and not so good at. It broadened my horizon to show me what was out there to write about. It gave me knowledge and confidence. I have continued to write, and in the future want to commence with the next course, but in the meantime, I have submitted various articles of mine to some magazines and have had nothing but positive feedback from all the editors and some of my work is to be published!! Which I personally feel is fantastic as I have only been doing this for a year or so. Thank you for opening up a whole new world of creativity to me which I can only enhance upon!!"
- Jo
- Become a skilled editor and proofreader
- Advance your career opportunities
- Gain a highly transportable and widely valued skill
Copy editing and proofing (proofreading) are two different processes.
- Proofreading involves reading over and correcting a manuscript AFTER the pages have been laid out. It also involves reading images taken from the artwork to ensure that they appear as intended.
- Copy editing is one stage before this. It involves reading over a manuscript that is in its final form (or close to final form), correcting textual errors, and ensuring the writing is logical and lucid. The copy editor also marks up typographical instructions for the production staff who have the task of creating the images that will be seen on each page.
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Modules
Note that each module in the Qualification - Certificate in Editing is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
Being a successful journalist is as much dependent upon you “working to specification” as it is, being a competent writer. Either one without the other can lead to career failure at worst, and an inability to reach your full potential at worst.
When editing your work, you should look at both the appropriateness of the content, the clarity of the language, and the style. When editing for online publication, you must also consider some factors that have been traditionally more important in advertising copy than in other writing, such as immediate visual impact, grabbing the reader’s attention, and otherwise making your work stand out and catch the attention of readers who may not be looking for what you write, or who are selecting from an enormous range of reading options.
Some factors that you might need to consider when writing for online publication are:
- Creating an immediate impact
- Interest in the topic – currency and amount of interest
- Holding the reader’s attention
- Page layout
- Creating visual variety and interest
- Ease of navigation
- Images
- Colour and style
- Creating links
- Interactive elements.
MARKING UP A MANUSCRIPT
Some manuscripts require structural editing (also called preliminary or substantive editing) before the document is copy edited. Editing at this stage focuses on the manuscript’s structure, and possibly also on its content.
An editor will need to “mark up” the manuscript, indicating changes to the text and giving instructions to the designer, artist and/or typesetter how the publication should appear when published. Traditionally this process involves writing notes on a hard copy of the manuscript, often using symbols or abbreviations. A table of these symbols and their meanings are listed below.
Copy editing is traditionally done in blue or black ink. Pencil is used for changes that the copy editor must first discuss with the writer. After the discussion, the pencil can be erased, and a pen used to insert any determined changes.
These days many copy editors work with electronic copies and make their changes directly on screen. Typographical instructions may be marked using electronic codes or by applying styles and formatting embedded in the word processing program.
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