Take your editing skills to the next level

Kick your editing skills up a notch with this intermediate level course. Work alongside our industry-experienced staff to expand your knowledge of text, publishing, and new forms of media.

Building on the material offered in Editing I, this course will help you with the finer points of editing, including:

• layout
• headings
• technical aspects
• ethical questions
• and more

This course is for:

• Editors new to the profession wanting to expand the basic skills of editing
• Experienced editors wanting to refresh their skill set
• Those who have studied Editing I

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction to Editing
   • State of the Art
   • Scope and nature of the work
   • Traditional and modern editing
   • Editing terminology
   • Writing job specifications.
2. Refining Text Editing
   • Common traps
   • Proofing documents
   • How much editing is appropriate
   • Who does what
   • More terminology.
3. Editing Headings in something
   • Headlines and Captions
   • Heading
   • Captions
   • Supporting material
   • Headings
   • Headlines
   • More terminology
4. Proofing Graphics
   • Line drawings
   • Technical illustrations
   • Half tones
   • Maps
   • Charts
   • Tables
   • Diagrams
   • Electronic processing of graphic images
   • Bits and colour depth
   • Pixels and resolution
   • Colour and black and white
   • Image formats
   • Types of files
   • Processing graphics
   • Choosing and designing with photos
   • What does the editor need to do with graphics
   • Electronic publishing
   • Terminology.
5. Editing and Design
   • Layout and design
   • Page Layout
   • Desktop publishing software
   • What is desktop publishing
   • Image manipulation.
6. Matching Style and Context
   • Targeting the reader
   • Style
   • Terminology.
7. Legal and Ethical Issues
   • Legal and ethical issues in publishing
   • Copyright
   • Copyright free materials
   • Copyright misconceptions
   • Defamation
   • Libel
   • Contract law
   • Right to privacy
   • Reporting restrictions
   • Law and the internet
   • CD/film and other electronic publishing
   • Terminology.
8. Editing Project
   • A practical editing project to end the course and utilise your new skills.

Aims

• To review the current state of editing, determining its scope, nature and trends
• To identify and edit text errors that commonly occur in a variety of publishing situations.
• To write and edit a variety of different headings and captions.
• To select, edit and mark up graphic illustrations.
• To edit the layout or design of a publication.
• To identify an appropriate style for the context of a publication, and edit the text to match the determined style.
• To edit text in order to remove legal and/or ethical risks
• Apply a broad range of skills to editing of a lengthy manuscript in a balanced way.

LEARN HOW MUCH EDITING IS APPROPRIATE

One of the commonest problems for editors is deciding how much, or how little, editing is required. Most editors have a natural tendency to over edit. By nature, editors are pedantic creatures and any mistake or any clumsy sentence, no matter how insignificant, is too painful to ignore. In an ideal world, we would edit every document to perfection; in reality, most documents only warrant fairly basic editing.

The bottom line is the budget. Editing should never send the project beyond its allocated budget – just like any other business, publishers set budgets to ensure the business remains viable.

PROOFING DOCUMENTS

Proofs can be checked in a variety of ways. However, a good plan is to read through the entire document twice before starting any work. This gives you an idea of what the document is about, and allows you to identify inconsistencies, omissions and passages that do not make sense.

When you begin editing or proofreading your document, be sure to pay special attention to the following:

• Check the numbering of tables, figures, equations etc. is logical and consecutive.
• Look for mistakes in the layout, such as missing or incorrectly placed items, inconsistent paragraph indents and margins, typographical errors.
• Reference systems – the correct one should be used and checked.
• Footnotes, appendices and so forth should be checked to ensure they meet the house style.
• Word breaks – when a word is broken at the end of the line, it should be a logical break. It is best to avoid bad and misleading breaks such as reap-pear, rear-range, the-rapist.
• Check routine details such as names, author’s name, dates etc.
• Check for hyphenated words – make sure there is a hyphen there.
• Check for misspellings. Spell checkers are fine, but they will only find misspelled words; they will not find inappropriately used words, for example, their instead of there, its instead of it’s.
• Look for misplaced apostrophes. If you are unsure about many aspects of punctuation, check.
• Check all text appears in the correct font.
• Ensure any cross-references are correct.

TARGETING THE READER

An editor needs to ensure that the publication is relevant to the situation in which it is being published. In order to do this, the editor must understand who the audience or readership is (or at least is likely to be).

If children are likely to be seeing the publication, there may be censorship, not to mention ethical concerns, to be taken into account.

The educational background or language skills of the readership may also be an issue.

It is very important to take account of the audience the publication is intended for: 

• The language must be appropriate – a modern slangy way of writing would probably not be appropriate for older people, whilst stiff traditional forms of writing would probably not be appropriate for teenagers. 
• The language should not be offensive.
• The language used must be age-appropriate. What a three-year-old understands is not going to be the same as a twelve-year-old.

When you edit a document you should consider the following:

• What is the purpose of the work?
• Who is likely to read it, and what is their likely level of understanding?
• How will the work be used?
• What is required?
• When is the work required?
• What decisions will be made based upon this work?
• Does the reader need to have anything explained in order to understand the work (eg. Should a glossary or appendix be included?)

Style

Style refers to the way in which words are used to convey images to the reader. Any document may be presented in a range of different styles. Consider a Shakespearean play being rewritten using modern language. This would be a change in style, but otherwise, the story could remain unchanged.

There are many different types of writing styles: formal, laid back, intense, old-fashioned, modern, youthful, descriptive, spare, instructional…to mention just a few.

Style often reflects aspects of the writer’s personality and character, and readers often identify with a particular writer’s style. If they like the style in one article or story, they will come to expect the same style in other article or stories by the same writer.

Most writers have a natural tendency to follow a particular style, and there is nothing wrong with maintaining a consistent style. Some writers will, however, develop an ability to vary their style according to the market they are writing for.

Some authors are concise and informative, but tend to be frugal in their use of adjectives. Such a style may be appropriate in a non-fiction book; or even fiction that demands conciseness (e.g. a children’s story or a short story). Some writers tend to use simpler words. Others may choose to use more complex and challenging words, perhaps including words that not everyone would understand.

It is the editor’s role to ensure the writer’s style of writing is appropriate for the publication, and the style is consistent throughout the document. In most cases is not the editor’s role to change the style.

WHY STUDY WITH ACS?

There are lots of reasons why you should sign up to do this course with us, including:

• The course is detailed to ensure that you have the level of knowledge required to apply the practices in your own work, whether that's as a business employee or as a self employed editor 
• Within each lesson you have the opportunity to apply your learning to activities which enables you to practice different concepts and expand your own research in areas of interest
• Knowledge of these key areas will enable you to stand out from other applicants when it comes to applying for jobs, it will also give you greater confidence
• Having the knowledge of different editing techniques will enable you to work in many different sectors and business types, giving you flexibility now and in the future
• Our subject specialist tutors will be there to support you throughout your course, they are only too happy to share their industry knowledge and experience with you
• When studying with us you set your own deadlines, meaning you study at your own pace enabling it to fit around other commitments

TAKE THE NEXT STEP AND ENROL NOW!

You can enrol on the course now, but if you have any questions about the content of the course or studying with ACS, then please get in touch with us today - use our FREE COURSE COUNSELLING SERVICE to get in touch with our expert tutors. They will be pleased to help you!