Author: Iva Cheung

International editing—a panel discussion (EAC-BC meeting)

Anne Brennan moderated a lively panel discussion about editing beyond Canada’s borders at last week’s EAC-BC meeting. On the panel were:

  • Theresa Best, who spent several years editing educational policy documents in the UK, working not only on texts but also on metadata tagging for digital content;
  • Eva van Emden, who has clients in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, many of whom found her because of her background in biology and computer science; and
  • Carol Zhong, who specializes in academic editing for clients in Hong Kong as well as in Europe.

Both Zhong and Best worked abroad and kept those clients when they returned to Canada. Van Emden began editing for international clients early on in her freelance career, beginning with a magazine based in the U.S., which had posted the job on the American Copy Editors Society’s job board. The posting didn’t mention anything about the editor’s having to be in the U.S., so she applied for it and got it. Although some international clients find editors via EAC’s Online Directory of Editors, Best emphasized the need to be proactive in marketing. “All jobs I’ve ever gotten [with UK communications and editorial services agencies] were because I approached them.”

Van Emden maintains a mix of Canadian and international clients, but Zhong works exclusively internationally, as did Best before she took an in-house position in Vancouver a few years ago. Zhong had worked in house at the Open University of Hong Kong, where she got into academic editing, and after she moved to Vancouver in 2000 she continued working for them. She also helps a lot of professors prepare their journal articles for submission.

Jean Lawrence, who had referred some European clients to Zhong, also attended the meeting and had prepared a detailed handout of international editing resources (available in the members’ section of the branch website). “International academics are under pressure to get published in English-language journals,” she said, and “there’s an enormous need for editors in this area.” Agencies that pair academics up with editors exist all over Europe and Asia. “A good way to find reputable agencies is to look on journal websites,” which often have an “instructions to authors” section that strongly urge academics to have their work edited before submission and may list several agencies they would recommend.

Lawrence warned, though, that there’s a disconnect between what we expect to be paid as editors in Canada versus what people in some parts of the world can afford. And PayPal fees in some countries can be outrageous. An audience member chimed in, saying that on the flip side, to some businesses and organizations in countries like Iceland and Switzerland, Canadian editors are “cheap offshore labour” and that there are opportunities if you look for them. “How much can you charge an international client?” Brennan asked the panel. Best was able to make 30 to 40 pounds per hour; Zhong charges one of her clients 230 Hong Kong dollars per hour. Frances Peck noted that on an Editors’ Weekly blog post was a reference to what editors typically charge, but those rates are from the U.S. and are considerably lower than the going rates in Canada.

“How do you get paid?” asked Brennan. Van Emden has a U.S.-dollar bank account, and she transfers from the U.S. account to her Canadian chequing account. She also keeps an account in Holland. “It’s easy for Europeans to do bank transfers within Europe,” she said. Best and Zhong also maintain separate accounts for different currencies. Otherwise currency conversions have associated fees, and the bank may put a hold on foreign-currency cheques for up to thirty business days.

Brennan wondered, is it helpful—or maybe essential—to speak another language, if you want to edit internationally? Best worked in the UK, so English was all she needed, she said. Zhong speaks French, some Spanish, Italian, and a bit of Cantonese and Mandarin. “Absolutely it helps,” she said. “It helps with the text, because you know how they’ve translated what they’re trying to say.” Van Emden does a little Dutch-to-English translation and so can correspond easily with her clients in the Netherlands. Zhong said that she never has to communicate with her Hong Kong–based clients in any language other than English, because English is the language of academic instruction there.

Brennan asked the panel which style guides or style manuals they had to use. Van Emden said that one of her Hong Kong clients uses The Economist Style Guide, and her U.S. clients use the Associated Press Stylebook. Each journal, in contrast, has its own way of doing things, which can be frustrating. In the UK, Best said, everything is Oxford—Oxford English Dictionary, as well as the Oxford Guide to Style. One of her current clients uses the UN Editorial Manual. Zhong says that her clients sometimes use a mixture of U.S. and UK spelling and punctuation. The Chicago Manual of Style is used quite a lot, and she’s also had to use Harvard style for citations.

Brennan capped off the evening by asking the panellists what they considered the best and worst aspects of international editing. Van Emden struggled with time zones, which Brennan acknowledged could be a problem even in Canada. “In Europe, their working day is our midnight to 9am,” van Emden explained. “The turnaround times are short. Once, one of my projects got spam filtered, and I didn’t find out until eight hours later.” Sometimes, though, time zones can be an advantage, Zhong remarked. If she receives something during the Hong Kong working day, she can spend her day working on it and send it back to the client, who would receive it first thing in the morning. “What I love most [about international editing] is that I get to read interesting manuscripts that I wouldn’t normally get to read. It’s a cultural education. And it’s always gratifying when clients appreciate your work, especially when a journal accepts an article you’ve edited for them.”

PubPro 2014—Registration opens soon!

Registration opens this Friday for the second annual PubPro unconference for managing editors and publication production specialists, co-hosted by the Editors’ Association of Canada’s BC branch and SFU Publishing Workshops. This year, the event will take place on Saturday, May 24, beginning in room 1420 at Harbour Centre, and, like last year, it will consist of a day of participant-driven presentations and group discussions and a mid-afternoon networking tea.

People who do publication project management and production tend not to have the same kinds of professional development opportunities as professionals in other areas of publishing. PubPro is an attempt to close the gap and offers us the chance to learn from one another. Presenters and discussion leaders are invited to share their slides and notes, which are shared with all registered participants.

This year, in addition to sponsorship from Friesens, Scrivener Communications, Talk Science to Me, and West Coast Editorial Associates, the Association of Book Publishers of BC is offering a travel subsidy to ABPBC members outside the Lower Mainland who want to attend. Contact Margaret Reynolds if you’d like more details.

Freelancers who want to chat up a roomful of managing editors are invited to join us for the networking tea for a mere $5. (The networking tea is included for participants who’ve registered for the unconference itself.)

At PubPro 2013, participants presented about such diverse issues as interactive editing, print on demand, and editing platforms beyond Microsoft Word and held discussions about project management software and digital workflow tools. I was heartened to see that the event reached two populations that EAC traditionally has always aimed, but has sometimes struggled, to reach: in-house and senior editors. I’m hoping that participants who came out last year and witnessed the process will be more comfortable coming forward to give a presentation or lead a discussion this year.

For those of you who plan to be there and are thinking about possible presentation or discussion topics, here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • The care and feeding of freelancers: What are some simple ways to build solid relationships with your best freelance editors, indexers, and designers? What kind of training, if any, do you give your freelancers?
  • Testing, testing: Do you test your new freelancers? With a test you developed in house? Is it reliable? Would you trust a third-party test? Would you trust credentials resulting from a third-party test?
  • One house, many imprints: Whether you’re a book publisher that has recently merged with another or a periodical publisher that puts out several different titles, you have a lot to juggle. How have you integrated your workflows? How do you reconcile differences in style and process?
  • XML first: How close are traditional publishers to an XML-first workflow? Some communities, like the technical communicators, have been “single sourcing” for years. What can we learn from them?
  • Editorial archiving: After each project, you’re left with a large stack of documents—whether physical or virtual. What do you keep? What do you recycle? What do you shred? How do you store the documents for easy retrieval? What security, liability, and ethical issues do you need to consider? What is the historical value of a set of editorial archives?
  • Mentorship: Thirty years ago, when publishing programs weren’t nearly as prevalent as they are today, in-house mentorship was the foundation upon which editors built their careers. Does mentorship still have a role to play? What does it look like? What should it look like?
  • Indexing: Are your publications indexed? Should they be? How do you find quality indexers? What is your indexing workflow? Do you have your indexers do embedded indexing?

Please spread the word about this one-of-a-kind event. For more information about PubPro 2014, visit the event’s main page. Read a recap of last year’s event on EAC-BC’s newsletter, West Coast Editor, or my previous blog posts.

UPDATE (April 12, 2014): Registration is now open!

Christine Middlemass—Libraries in an evolving landscape (EAC-BC meeting)

Christine Middlemass, now the Vancouver Public Library’s manager of collection and technical services, has been at the VPL (recently named best library system in the world by researchers at Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf) for thirty-five years. Over that time she’s seen the library undergo massive change, and she joined us at the March EAC-BC meeting to give us a glimpse into that evolution, noting that developments are happening so quickly now that “what I tell you today will probably be different in a week.”

In the beginning, the VPL aimed to build a balanced collection at each branch. At that time, the time of the card catalogue, it wasn’t easy to know what was available at another location, so each branch was effectively independent. Print was king, with hardcover being the main format, and the library operated on a “just-in-case” basis, meaning the librarians had to anticipate what users would want. Back then, the library would also provide print-based reference services: “I, as the reference librarian, was the search engine,” said Middlemass. “It’s amazing to think about it now, but the information really was all in our heads.” The VPL’s focus was on a creating a product—this perfectly balanced collection—and the strategy “worked great for at least twenty of my thirty-five years.”

What changed? The short answer is technology: thanks to Google and the Internet, librarians don’t get the same number of questions. At the same time, they’re deluged in other ways, today having to consider the entire VPL system rather than focusing on an individual branch. They also have to review a mountain of information, including print catalogues, e-catalogues, databases, self-published authors, and many other sources, when adding to the collection. What’s more, the VPL is expected to buy the same content over and over again, in different formats: print, ebooks, audio, e-audio, DVD, Blu-ray—and all with more and more budgetary pressures. The library no longer owns much of its collection; licenses for ebooks and other electronic media are all different, and each has to be negotiated separately. For example, HarperCollins limits each ebook to twenty-six circulations, and Penguin offers licences limited to one year. “They’re making up their own minds about what they’re going to charge us. And they’re not always sharing the logic behind it.”

According to a January report from the Pew Research Center, 28 per cent of adults read an ebook in 2013 (up 5 per cent from the previous year). 47 per cent of those were under 30, and 17 per cent were over 65. “Part of my career was spent lobbying for quality books in large print,” explained Middlemass. But now people can simply bump up the font size on a tablet. At the VPL, ebooks make up 2 to 4 per cent of lending. Borrowing ebooks can be challenging: if the library has only one license for a book and someone else has borrowed it, you have to put a hold on it and sit on a waiting list for it to be available. Once you get it, you have a limited amount of time to read it before it evaporates off your device. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense to most of us. With a physical book, sure, but with a digital resource?” It doesn’t help that some devices use proprietary file formats and many vendors insist on bundling their content, offering books you want only in packages including a bunch of books you don’t want. Bundling is something librarians and advocacy groups like ReadersFirst are actively fighting. “I don’t want to be using taxpayer money to buy books that people won’t use,” said Middlemass.

These days a selections team of seven librarians oversee acquisitions for the entire system, although each branch still has its own profile that the team keeps in mind. A portion of the library’s collection is “floating”; some items don’t have a permanent home. The VPL also collaborates with other libraries in the Lower Mainland via InterLINK to share collections, and patrons can access other libraries’ collections with an interlibrary loan.

The VPL has shifted from offering a product to a service: librarians now aim to get you the material you’re looking for, when you need it—and the material that people request reflects the library’s changing community. In the early days, The VPL carried mostly English books, with some French; it now offers fourteen additional languages and are figuring out how to add more. The library has strived to balance public demand with acquisitions made based on positive critical reviews and embraces patron-driven acquisition, where, as Middlemass explained, “‘suggest a purchase’ meets interlibrary loan.” Knowing that one of its strengths is its collection of local books, the VPL is strengthening relationships with local publishers, including self-publishers. If the library finds out about a local self-published book, it will usually acquire a copy. “Some authors can be naive and end up spamming everyone at the library,” laughed Middlemass. “But some self-published books are very, very good.”

The VPL is experimenting with different ways of promoting reading, advocating for readers, and bringing readers and writers together, from holding workshops on writing and on self-publishing to hosting writer-in-residence programs and book clubs. It is also promoting its physical spaces, offering quiet places for users to work and read, as well as venues for groups to meet. By the end of this year, the VPL hopes to open its Inspiration Lab, a digital content space that will support users as they generate their own content.

Plain Language: Clear and Simple

In 1991, in the heyday of the push for plain language in government, Supply and Services Canada produced a sixty-page plain language writing guide, in each official language, called Plain Language: Clear and Simple and Pour un style clair et simple. According to one of my colleagues, every federal employee at the time got a copy, and the guides were also available for sale to the public. Three years later, the same federal department published the companion volume Plain Language: Clear and Simple—Trainer’s Guide, which, in 220-odd pages, contains all of the materials a trainer might need to lead a two-day plain language course, including

  • text detailing the steps of (and reasons for) the plain language process,
  • before-and-after examples,
  • exercises,
  • transparencies,
  • a checklist,
  • handouts, and
  • references.

I found out about these resources when I was volunteering for the PLAIN 2013 conference in the fall and was able to dig through the archives of Plain Language Association International. “People still ask for them all the time,” Cheryl Stephens told me, “but they’re not easy to find.”

She wasn’t kidding. As of right now, on Amazon.ca, one “new” copy of the sixty-page English booklet is available for $94.36; used copies are going for $46.39. I can’t find the French booklet or the trainer’s guide on Amazon at all.

And it’s no wonder they’re so coveted. Despite their age, they are still among the best plain language writing guides that I have come across. The smaller booklets are succinct and easily digestible, and the trainer’s guide is detailed and persuasive. The references are out of date, of course, as is some of the design advice, but otherwise, they remain solid references and are certainly great starting points for anyone hoping to learn more about plain language.

The federal government tweaked Crown copyright in 2013, leaving each department to manage its own copyright, but seeing as Supply and Services Canada no longer exists, I’m going to assume Crown copyright still applies to these publications, meaning that I am allowed to make copies of them as long as I distribute them for free or on a cost-recovery basis.

Before I returned the PLAIN archives to Cheryl, I photographed the pages from all three volumes and have rebuilt them from scratch, replicating the originals as closely as possible, down to the teal-and-purple palette that was so inexplicably popular in the nineties. And here they are:

The PDFs are free to download. I also published them via CreateSpace in case anyone wanted a hard copy (the list prices are set to the lowest allowable and are for cost recovery only) but primarily for discoverability, because within a few weeks of this post, all three should come up in a search on the extended Amazon network. The two little booklets are in colour, which is why they’re a little pricier, but I chose to offer the trainer’s guide in black and white, because the only colour was in the “Tips for trainers” inserts and I didn’t think it was worth increasing the price for just those twenty pages. The PDF of the trainer’s guide has those supplementary pages in colour.

Notes

  1. If anyone from the Government of Canada would like to reclaim copyright over these publications, please get in touch. I’m not making any money off of them, of course, and I don’t mind relinquishing my rights over the files, but I would like them to be available.
  2. I don’t know if a French version of the trainer’s guide exists, but if someone has it and would be willing to lend it to me or scan it for me, I would be happy to rebuild it as well. (UPDATE: Dominique Joseph tracked down a copy of the Guide du formateur, and I’ve added the rebuilt file to the above list.)

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Cheryl Stephens for providing the originals and Ruth Wilson for supplying a couple of pages that I was missing. Huge thanks also to my extraordinary volunteer proofreaders: Grace Yaginuma, who cast her eagle eyes over the English booklet and trainer’s guide, and Micheline Brodeur, who proofed the French booklet and supplied the translation for the descriptive copy on CreateSpace. Finally, a tip of the hat to whoever created these enduringly useful resources in the first place. We owe you a great debt.

UPDATE—July 21, 2014: A million thanks to Dominique Joseph for finding and sending me a copy of the Guide du formateur, proofreading the rebuilt document, and drafting the descriptive copy for CreateSpace.

Back to school: A self-indulgent personal post

This week I got an official letter of acceptance to the PhD program in SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences, where I’ll be studying knowledge translation. In particular, I’ll be looking at ways to apply plain language principles to mental health research to make it more accessible to patients, practitioners, advocacy groups, and policy makers. I’m thrilled by the prospect of applying my editorial skills and clear communication knowledge to increase health and scientific literacy.

Although I’m heading back to school, in no way will I be leaving publishing; I adore my career, and my plan (although plans may change, of course) is to come right back once I’ve completed the degree. In the meantime, I’ll be dialing down the amount of publishing work I take on to a small handful of projects a year so that I can focus on my research.

I’ll also be drastically cutting back on my volunteer commitments with organizations such as the Editors’ Association of Canada. Over the past two years I’ve been a member of EAC’s Certification Steering Committee, which oversees the national program that certifies editors who have demonstrated excellence in proofreading, copy editing, stylistic editing, or structural editing. This committee is made up of some of the smartest, funniest, and most dedicated people I know, and working with them on projects to promote and strengthen the certification program has been a huge privilege. Leaving this collegial, optimistic, and productive group in August will be bittersweet.

At the branch level, I’ve worked with Frances Peck for the past two seasons (and with Micheline Brodeur last year) on the EAC-BC Programs Committee to set topics and invite speakers for our monthly meetings. We managed to put together an impressive lineup of speakers on fascinating subjects from forensic linguistics and cartography to subcontracting and the evolving role of libraries. Our ideas have spilled over into next season, and whoever takes over on the committee next year will be able to hit the ground running.

I can’t emphasize enough that my experiences on these committees—not to mention the professional relationships and friendships I’ve forged—have been tremendous for professional development, and I urge anyone considering volunteering for EAC to seize the opportunity. I will still be an active EAC member, and I am still happy to volunteer for small jobs here and there or for one-off events, but I’ll no longer have the time for ongoing committee work. If there’s still demand after this year’s PubPro unconference, a peer-driven professional development event for publication production professionals, I would be more than willing to run it again. And I still hope to attend EAC meetings and conferences and write up what I’ve gleaned from the sessions on my blog (although once I’m off the Programs Committee, I may allow myself to miss the odd meeting).

Speaking of my blog, my intention is still to post regularly on editorial, indexing, publishing, and plain language topics, but you might start seeing a bit more of a knowledge translation, health literacy, or mental health bent to my writing. Realistically, though, I won’t have time to do any more book reviews once school starts up. I’d love to keep crapping out my dumb little cartoons, but I might not be able to keep up with my monthly schedule.

Finally, I’d love to keep teaching in SFU’s Writing and Communications program. Changes are afoot in how those courses are being offered, though, so I’m not sure if I’ll still have a role to play. If it turns out that I will, I’ll be sure to post news about upcoming courses.

I’d like to thank all of my friends, colleagues, and mentors who have given me encouragement and advice as I’ve plotted this next step, which I have wanted to take for a long time. I feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing, supportive people.

Luca Pellanda—Posture for editors (EAC-BC meeting)

Luca Pellanda, a registered massage therapist, spoke at last week’s EAC-BC meeting about the importance of posture for good health. Married to editor Eve Rickert, Pellanda knows all about the particular stresses we face. He bases his work on the three concepts in his health triangle:

  • REST
  • nutrition, and
  • mobility.

They are all interconnected. Rest is in capitals, he explained, because “it’s important. But as editors, you don’t seem to do much of that.” Figuring out when and how much to rest can ultimately make you healthier and more productive. Even when we face a deadline crunch, it’s usually better to take breaks and recharge rather than trying to power through.

Sleeping posture

Restfulness usually begins with getting enough sleep, and Pellanda showed how having the right support when you’re lying down—the kind that keeps your spinal column from overrotating at the neck or pelvis—can help you stay asleep longer and give you a more restful night.

Back

When you sleep on your back, make sure your pillow isn’t too high, pushing your neck forward. A pillow under the knees can help keep your pelvis aligned with the spine. A thinner pillow—you can use a folded towel—at the small of your back can also be a huge help, supporting your back and allowing your back muscles to rest.

Front

If you sleep on your front, be aware again of whether your pillow is too high; if it is, it increases the curve of your cervical spine. Although Pellanda doesn’t recommend against sleeping on your front, he does point out that, to breathe, your head needs to be turned to the side, which can fatigue the neck.

A thin pillow in the midriff area keeps the pelvis from rotating downward and causing pain. Again, a folded towel can serve this function well.

Side

Find a pillow that is at the appropriate height so that your neck isn’t tilted and so that your spine is aligned. An advantage of ergonomic pillows is that they are designed to give your ear and nose enough room when you’re on your side. A pillow between the legs helps keep the hips level. Finally, a small pillow in the midsection helps take weight off the shoulders, making it less likely that your shoulders will collapse toward one another as you sleep and strain your neck and shoulder muscles. Your arms, when you’re on your side, may also need their own supports. Pellanda says that a down pillow—provided you don’t have allergies—is a great option, because you can shift the feathers around and adjust the heights of different parts of the pillow to accommodate your head and your arms.

The common theme to all of these sleeping postures is the advantage of the thin pillow at the midsection, which supports your weight no matter your position, helps keep your spinal column aligned, and allows your muscles to rest.

Sitting posture

Even when we have the best of intentions to sit up straight, a lot of us end up slouching. When you lean in to look at a computer screen, the muscles at the back of your neck get fatigued, and your head moves forward. Your shoulders rotate to compensate for your head, and your pelvis has to rotate to compensate for your shoulders. When you have good posture, your spine is supporting about twelve pounds of pressure. If you move your head two inches forward, the cervical spine has to support 32 pounds; three inches forward, and the spine has to support an equivalent of 42 pounds.

If possible, get a comfortable chair that has as many adjustments as possible so that you can customize it to your body. Lumbar support is good but not necessary—a stool can work just as well. Your feet should be flat on the ground or on a footrest with the toes pointing slightly upward. Some footrests are adjustable in tilt and height, and moving your feet while you work is actually very healthy, because it helps pump the blood back up from your legs into your torso. Make sure the front of your seat isn’t pressing into the back of your knees; otherwise it could interfere with blood circulation in your legs.

To get the most out of your work day, vary your posture: sit up straight, sit semi-reclined, and stand up. Being able to switch between positions wears on you less and lets you have longer stretches of productivity. Your body does need to take regular breaks, though, where you stretch or go for a walk. Everybody’s different, so telling everyone to take a break every twenty minutes isn’t realistic. Test out different work cycles of x minutes on, y minutes off to see what works for you. You can set up regular reminders on your computer to take breaks.

If you’re reading not on screen but on paper, find a way to bring the page up to you rather than taking your head down to the page. Angled workstations, whether built-in or add-on, are actually quite affordable, said Pellanda, and they can reduce aggravation. (An ergonomic specialist once suggested a two-inch binder as a low-cost way of propping up proofs and reducing neck strain.)

When you work, your arm should be lower than your desk. The inherent flaw of laptops, Pellanda pointed out, is that if your monitor is at the right height, your keyboard is not—and vice versa. To solve this problem, he advises getting either an external monitor or an external keyboard. “And keyboards are cheaper,” he said. Pellanda sees a lot of shoulder injuries from people using a move-around mouse; a trackball may help prevent some of those injuries.

Standing posture

Standing desks are becoming more popular and, again, it’s important to arrange the workstation so that it suits your body. There are setups that allow you to adjust the position of your monitor and keyboard so that you can sit as well as stand. Pellanda showed us options for stools that support you while you stand but also allow you to lean into them. Some also feature a padded region for the knees so that you can kneel slightly. Being able to move comfortably from standing to leaning to kneeling can lengthen the amount of time you can spend at your workstation without getting too tired.

When standing, make sure that you have supportive footwear. High heels can create all sorts of havoc with your posture because they prevent your weight from being evenly distributed. They can lead to shortening of your calf muscles and other problems, including bunions and plantar fasciitis.

We are used to thinking of our back muscles holding us up when we stand, but the strength of our core muscles plays an important role in our posture. Pellanda suggests swimming as an excellent way to exercise and strengthen your core because it makes you use your muscles symmetrically.

***

Ergonomic desks, chairs, and add-ons might seem to cost a lot of money, but Pellanda suggests that it’s an investment back into your health triangle. What’s the impact on your body of hours of slouching? Developing better posture allows your body to rest and could give you a better quality of life, so that you can actually enjoy it, when you’re done working.