Author: Iva Cheung

Cookbook indexing in Microsoft Word

I’ve just wrapped up a cookbook index, and while I was putting it together I found myself referring to notes I’d made a while ago for a friend who wanted to do cookbook indexing but didn’t want to invest in indexing software. When I worked in house, I’d prepared several cookbook indexes using only Microsoft Word and figured out, through trial and error, a reasonably efficient system. I figured I’d share my notes here for anyone interested. If you have a client with a specific house style, you might have to adjust the approach a bit.

What follows isn’t a guide for writing a good cookbook index. For that kind of information, I’d suggest “A Piece of Cake? Cookbook Indexing–Basic Guidelines and Resources” by Cynthia D. Bertelsen and Recipes into Type by Joan Whitman and Dolores Simon (relevant excerpt about indexes here). The notes below are just a step-by-step system you can follow to take advantage of Word’s functions when creating a cookbook index even though it ordinarily isn’t a great program to use for indexing.

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Specialized indexing software is invaluable if you’re indexing most nonfiction titles, but a cookbook index has a straightforward structure that Word can easily accommodate.  The key is to keep the following in mind:

  • As tempting as it might be to sort as you go along—as indexing software allows you to do—don’t. You’ll have a much easier time if you alphabetize near the end.
  • The pages may not be final when you start data entry. Be prepared to adjust your locators if they move around.
  • Microsoft Word does not sort letter by letter; you may have to go through your index at the end and tweak the ordering of the entries.

1. Data entry

a) Start with the first recipe. Key in the recipe title verbatim (or copy and paste from a PDF), along with the page range. If the recipe has a photo, add that page number in italics.

Type the title in as it appears if it starts with a descriptor:

Deen’s Buttered Bacon Rolls, 108–9, 109

If the title starts with a main ingredient, state the main ingredient category first, followed by a comma. Keep everything on the same line for now.

chickpeas, Chickpea, Green Onion and Quinoa Salad, 54–55

b) Copy the recipe title and locator (the highlighted part):

chickpeas, Chickpea, Green Onion and Quinoa Salad, 54–55

c) Paste the recipe title and locator after keying in all other main ingredients and broad categories (like “beef,” “fish,” “salads,” “sauces,” etc.) on separate lines:

green onions, Chickpea, Green Onion and Quinoa Salad, 54–55
quinoa, Chickpea, Green Onion and Quinoa Salad, 54–55
salads, Chickpea, Green Onion, and Quinoa Salad, 54–55

d) If the recipe title starts with more than one descriptor, add entries for all possible inversions that readers might look up. Add a special mark like an asterisk, which indicates that this entry could be considered for cutting if space is tight:

Buttered Bacon Rolls, Deen’s, 108–9, 109*

e) Key in any subrecipe titles and page ranges, under an appropriate category if necessary. If the subrecipe title is generic, you may also have to add the full recipe title for clarity. Append a double-asterisk, indicating that this is a subrecipe:

dressing, Special Dressing, for Chickpea, Green Onion and Quinoa Salad, 54–55**

f) Index special ingredients or techniques only if they are defined/discussed in detail. If the book contains many definitions, you may want to indicate these by setting the locators in boldface. Again, append a double-asterisk:

cold smoking, 56, 56–59**

g) Repeat steps 1a to 1e for all recipes in the cookbook, proceeding in order. Apply 1f as needed, as you go along.

h) Add any logical cross-references.

beef. See also veal

i) Run a spell check on the index.

j) Save this file as index_v1.

k) Once the cookbook’s pages have been finalized, confirm locators, making any necessary adjustments. Save index_v1.

2. Structuring

a) Alphabetize: select all, go to Table → Sort… → Sort by paragraphs, ascending.

b) You’ll have lists like these:

beef, Chinese Five-Spice Beef Short Ribs
beef, Curried Beef and Vegetable Skewers
beef, Grilled Garam Masala Burgers
beef, Wine-Marinated Prime Rib Roast
beef. See also veal

Move the general category and any cross-references to the top, then replace the category in all other entries with a tab indent by selecting that segment of text and using Word’s Find and Replace function.

beef. See also veal
     Chinese Five-Spice Beef Short Ribs
     Curried Beef and Vegetable Skewers
     Grilled Garam Masala Burgers
     Wine-Marinated Prime Rib Roast

Go through the index and repeat this step for all categories that have two or more subentries.

c) For main ingredient categories that have only one recipe, just invert the recipe name to showcase that ingredient first:

quinoa, Chickpea, Green Onion and Quinoa Salad, 54–55

becomes

Quinoa, Green Onion and Chickpea Salad, 54–55

d) Add line spaces after the end of each section that begins with the same letter. Add group headings “A,” “B,” etc. before each section only if there is enough room.

e) Add a headnote mentioning that photos are referenced in italics and definitions in boldface.

f) Save as index_v2.

3. Cutting to spec and finalizing the index

a) Save as index_v3.

b) If the index is too long, consider first eliminating whole categories that readers are unlikely to look up or that are redundant. For example, if the book itself has a section devoted to desserts, having a dessert category in the index is not needed.

c) If the index is still too long, consider combining some categories and adding cross-references. For example, if you have divided “fish” and “shellfish,” consider combining them under “seafood” and adding cross-references to the new category under both “fish” and “shellfish.” Doing so will allow you to cut duplicates of recipes that include both fish and shellfish.

d) If the index is still too long, consider cutting all subrecipes and special ingredients/techniques, which you’d marked off earlier with double-asterisks.

(If the index needs a lot of cutting and you’re confident you will need to cut all entries marked off with double-asterisks, you can use Word’s Replace function to get rid of all of them at once. If you’re comfortable with wildcard searches, place your cursor at the top of the document, then, in the Replace dialogue box, put [!^13]@\*\*^13 in the “Find what” field and nothing in the “Replace with” field. Make sure “Use wildcards” is checked. Clicking “Replace all” should get rid of any lines that end with a double-asterisk.)

e) If the index is still too long, evaluate for cutting or abridging only those entries that have an asterisk. (Never cut out or modify an entry that matches the recipe title exactly.) If it makes sense to cut the whole entry, do it. You could also cut part of the title if it refers to sauces and garnishes that aren’t a fundamental part of the dish.

f) Delete all the asterisks. (Using the Replace function, put * in the “Find what” field and nothing in the “Replace with” field.)

g) Edit the index as outlined in Chicago 16.133, in particular double-checking alphabetization, then save index_v3 and submit it.

Versioning system

  • Index_v1: This version makes it easier to update locators if pages—especially if spreads or larger groups of pages—are moved around.
  • Index_v2: Go back to this version if the publisher decides to add pages to allow more room for the index.
  • Index_v3: Your final submitted index.

Condensing texts: Lessons from a recent project

At the Editors’ Association of Canada conference in June, Elizabeth Macfie gave a talk about shortening text. From the program:

All editors and writers need to be able to shorten texts. Brevity enhances readability; squeezes content into limited spaces; saves money on translation, proofreading and printing; and increases social-media quotability. This session provides principles, techniques and tools for efficiently trimming texts, as well as the justification for that trimming. We’ll practise on material such as correspondence, newspaper articles and headings, reports, instructions, interview and meeting transcripts, PowerPoint slides, abstracts and tweets.

I was disappointed to have missed Macfie’s talk, which was at the same time as Helena Aalto and Laurel Boone’s, but I got a chance to chat with her during breaks at the conference and have looked through the excellent notes that she’s made available on the EAC website. At the time I was working on a project to shorten several academic reports—average length 20,000 words—to no more than 6,000 words each, for an upcoming anthology. I’ve completed the first major phase of that project and wanted to jot down some quick thoughts about my approach in case I ever find myself doing a similar project again, and I figured I may as well share them here.

The project

Way back when I was a student journalist, I was taught to load the front of a news article with critical information so that an editor working on deadline could easily trim from the bottom if the text didn’t fit. Too bad other genres aren’t as straightforward to cut.

My project consisted of nine master’s-level, thesis-length academic reports, each of which included standard components such as an abstract, introductory chapter, main body chapters, concluding chapter, and back matter (notes, bibliography, and up to several appendices). My job was to cut them down to digestible papers that would be compiled into a collection and used as teaching tools in both undergraduate and graduate classes.

Initial read-through

Look—don’t touch. Well, that’s the idea, anyway. I have to admit to cutting the abstract and appendices right away, to eliminate those distractions and to get a better idea of my true starting word count. Beyond those cuts, though (which were especially cathartic because they didn’t require much thought and they made me feel as though I’d accomplished something early on), I did my best to read through all of the text without deleting anything.

Putting the machete down for the first read prevents you from premature cutting; content that seems unimportant in an early part of the text may grow in relevance later on. It also allows you to get a good sense of the author’s main ideas. Highlight if you want—but try not to delete.

Structural cutting

“To retain the author’s voice, cut large chunks of text rather than individual words,” suggested Macfie when I spoke with her during the conference breaks. This phase of what I’ve called structural cutting—deleting whole sections, paragraphs, and sentences—is the analogue (or perhaps a subset?) of structural editing, and it’s a crucial step if you’re expecting to cut more than, say, 25% of your text. Working with changes tracked allows you to easily restore passages when you’ve decided you’ve cut too much.

Cut in several passes

What seems essential during one reading may reveal itself to be expendable during the next. If the schedule allows, let your brain and the text rest a bit before starting the next pass.

Cut introductions, conclusions, and back matter

Academic writing, particularly theses, can have a lot of repetition: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them” is an approach academics often quote and follow. Redundancy may be the antidote to confusion, but when your goal is to cut a text down to 30% of its original length, redundancy is a luxury.

The abstract, introduction, and conclusion are typically just summaries of the main body, and in those cases they can be cut right off the bat. You may have to restore part of the conclusion to give the final text a satisfying ending, but the introduction, which is usually a lot of signposting and scene setting, often doesn’t communicate the essence of the text. (In all of the reports I condensed, I could cut the introduction without losing meaning.) Certainly all appendices and go, as can most of the notes that don’t cite sources. Presumably if these were critical, they would be integrated into the main text.

Background and historical information—and academic reports and theses can have a lot of it, particularly in introductory chapters—can usually be cut or heavily condensed. If you find yourself asking if a paragraph really needs to be there, more often than not it can go. I also took advantage of authors’ tendencies to structure each chapter with introductory and concluding sections; again, because these repeated information within the chapter, I could cut these with no loss in meaning.

Cut quotes—especially block quotes

Writers often make a statement and then buttress it with a quote from an authority, essentially repeating information. Evaluate which one—the statement or the quote—holds the most weight, and cut the other. (I found I hung on to authors’ statements more than quotes, since they were often more concise and worked better with the surrounding text.) You can attach the citation for the quote to the statement if you need to, and keen readers wanting to know more can follow up with the source.

Cut examples

Writers use examples, much as they do with quotes, to support their point. But if their statement is understandable or authoritative without them, those examples—or at least most of them—can go.

Cut cross-references

Cut every reference to appendices or sections that no longer exist. My target word count was so much smaller than the initial word count that I took out internal cross-references entirely. Clauses like “As we’ll see in Chapter 2” were obvious flags for sentences that I could delete: either the information was repeated (in which case one of the instances could go), or it would be so much closer to the reference to it that such way-finding and priming tools were unnecessary.

Stylistic cutting

When I had the reports down to about 9,000 words, I refocused my efforts on phrase- and word-level cuts, concurrent with a stylistic edit that naturally eliminated wordiness. Although I don’t agree with everything in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, this phase is where “omit needless words” holds true.

If you’ve got a strict target word count (as I had), try to come a but under it so that you have some wiggle room if you need to adjust the text in the final phase.

Cut parentheticals

Parentheticals, whether they set are set off by commas, parentheses, or dashes, can usually be taken out without sacrificing the main point of the sentence. (Case in point: that last sentence.) Cutting them also preserves the author’s voice, because you’re not changing the way the author has expressed the main idea.

Cut metadiscourse

“It should be noted that” and similar phrases are self-conscious and unnecessary. Get rid of them.

Shorten lists

And I don’t mean cutting list items (unless they’re superfluous examples). Rather, because a list consists of a stem followed by list item A, list item B, list item C, and so on, see if you can find ways to integrate repeated information in the list items into the stem (e.g., “…followed by list items A, B, C, and so on”).

Apply usual stylistic editing principles

A cop-out? You bet. But eliminating redundancies, cutting wordiness (“a total of” is almost always unnecessary; “in an X manner” and “on a Y basis” can usually be shortened), changing voice from passive to active where appropriate, and using verbs and adjectives instead of nominalizations will not only shorten text but also make it a more engaging read.

Final read-through

Always—always!—read through the final text before submitting it to the author or client. Obvious advice, perhaps, but it’s especially important when cutting. If you can, let the text sit for a day or two and come back to it with fresh eyes and a (relatively) blank mind, so that you can easily spot where you’ve inadvertently cut out a definition or where you have to smooth the transitions between paragraphs and sections. Another option is to work with a partner who could do a cold read and identify confusing or choppy content.

Other thoughts

Terminology

As liberally as I’ve written “cut” in this post, I tried not to use the term when I corresponded with the authors; “condense” or “distill” did a better job of capturing the spirit of my task. When I asked authors to review my work, I did acknowledge that condensing a text down to less than a third of its length necessarily meant that not all of the content was there but that I hoped they found the final text stood well on its own.

Scheduling

I was lucky to have had a flexible schedule for this project, which let me set the reports aside for a bit before returning to them for another pass at cutting. Once the information got a chance to percolate in my brain, I had a better handle on what was important and what wasn’t. So often I’d feel as though I’d hit a wall and just couldn’t possibly cut anymore, but being able to leave the text and come back to it always highlighted further opportunities to trim.

If you ever have to do major condensing, try to schedule plenty of time for it. The time you actively spend cutting is a small fraction of the time you need to let the text simmer.

Importing other skill sets

You don’t have to be an indexer to cut texts, of course, but my experience indexing certainly helped me pinpoint the authors’ main arguments in each paragraph and identify what not to cut. (It’s no wonder many indexers also work as abstracters.) Twitter, oddly enough, has also honed my cutting skills: I found myself applying the same critical thought process to cutting words and paragraphs as when I’m trying to squeeze a tweet down to its 140-character limit.

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These notes are just a case study of one editor’s experiences with one project. Certainly if you were working with different genres, audiences, and word limits, you’d have to adjust your tack accordingly. I’d strongly recommend Elizabeth Macfie’s notes from her EAC conference talk for a more general overview of techniques and strategies for condensing text.

Writing in plain language—an Information Mapping webinar

David Singer of Information Mapping hosted a free webinar about writing in plain language. Much of the second half of the session was devoted to the Information Mapping method, covered in the Introduction to Information Mapping webinar that I wrote about earlier, but the first half focused on plain language itself.

Plain language defined

What is plain language? The Center for Plain Language in Washington, DC, uses the following definition:

A communication is in plain language if the people who are the audience for that communication can quickly and easily

  • find what they need
  • understand what they find, and
  • act appropriately on that understanding.

Singer likes this definition, noting that there’s no mention of “dumbing down” the information, which is not what plain language is about.

Plain Writing Act

On October 13, 2010, President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act into law: “The purpose of this Act is to improve the effectiveness and accountability of Federal agencies to the public by promoting clear Government communication that the public can understand and use.” Interestingly, regulations were exempt from this requirement, although there’s since been a push to have regulations given in plain language as well.

Have the agencies made progress? Although some agencies have made an effort to implement plain language principles, the new law hasn’t made that much progress since it came into effect in 2011. The Center for Plain Language issued a report card in 2012 and found that out of the twelve agencies they looked at, only four scored a B or higher in complying with the basic requirements of the act. The Department of Homeland Security scored a D, and the Veterans Affairs Department scored an F.

Why were they having so much trouble?

  • The agencies were dealing with an unfunded mandate. Although the Plain Writing Act was signed into law, the agencies had no budget allowances to implement the training and changes to government documentation.
  • There was no specific yardstick to measure success. How do you define “clearer” or “easier to understand”?
  • There were no consequences for non-compliance.
  • There were no clear plans for implementation.

The effort to implement plain language faces a lot of barriers, including the fact that initial enthusiasm about the idea can fade and there is a lot of resistance to change. Technical folks may not believe that their communications can be made simpler or clearer, and attorneys and security people may not want their language to be easy to understand.

Telling people to use personal pronouns, active voice, and shorter sentences isn’t enough, argues Singer. You need a systematic method based on sound principles and a clear plan for implementation to work.

The Information Mapping method

Most of the challenges, says Singer, don’t involve grammar. Plain language’s chief concerns are about making complex information clear and accessible; writing for different audiences (how do you create a single document that meets the needs of many groups of people?); organizing large amounts of information; working with a team of writers (managing different styles, etc.); keeping up with changes; and finding a way to reuse content. Singer suggested the Information Mapping method as a way to achieve these objectives.

Some of the principles behind Information Mapping—chunking, relevance, and labelling—were covered in the Introduction to Information Mapping webinar. The method also has three other principles—consistency, integrated graphics, and accessible detail—which the Information Mapping crew covers only in the training sessions and not in these free webinars.

Singer presented case studies to show the benefits of applying the Information Mapping to business communication. In general, Information Mapping has found that its method leads to a

  • 32% increase in retrieval accuracy
  • 38% increase in usage of the documentation
  • 83% increase in initial learning during training
  • 90% decrease in questions to the supervisor
  • 83 % decrease in the time for a first draft
  • 75% decrease in the time to review the documentation
  • 54% decrease in error rates
  • 50% decrease in reading time
  • 30% decrease in the word count

By implementing a concrete plain language plan, such as the Information Mapping method, you may see the following benefits:

  • revenue growth—by reducing the time it takes to create content and shortening the time for products and their documentation to make it to market
  • cost reduction—by capturing employee knowledge, increasing operational efficiency, reducing support calls, and decreasing translation costs (owing to lower word counts and clearer content)
  • risk mitigation—by increasing safety and compliance

Resources on plain language

For more information about plain language, visit:

(or come to PLAIN 2013!)

An archive of this webinar, as well as more information about the Information Mapping system and training, can be found on the Information Mapping website.

Laurel Hyatt—The chart clinic (EAC conference 2013)

Laurel Hyatt gave us a quick tour of the system she uses to diagnose and treat ailing charts. Taking the medical metaphor further, she said that at the substantive editing stage, the goal is prevention; at the copy-editing stage, the goal is successful treatment; and at the proofreading stage, sometimes all we can do is try to keep the chart alive. The earlier you can intervene when you spot a poor chart, the better.

Charts are the trifecta of communication: numbers, words, and pictures. When they come together in harmony, said Hyatt, they can be a beautiful thing. If one or more of those elements goes wrong, the chart can be a dog’s breakfast.

Charts should tell a story. Hyatt showed us examples functional and dysfunctional charts in each of four of the most popular types of charts. Here is just a sample of her advice:

Bar charts

Do

  • make the y-axis begin at 0. Doing otherwise could exaggerate the difference between two bars and be misleading.
  • show scales (such as years) in even increments.

Don’t

  • use more than about ten bars per chart.
  • use more precision in number labels than necessary.

If you have too little data, consider using text instead. If there’s too much data, try a table. Even-year time series may work better as a line chart, and parts of a whole that add up to 100% may work better as a pie chart.

Line charts

Do

  • use a scale that clearly shows changes over time (or whatever you’re measuring on the x-axis).
  • use even increments of time (or whatever you’re measuring on the x-axis)

Don’t

  • use too many lines. Even with a legend, crowded lines will be confusing and hard to interpret.

When you have uneven increments of time, a bar chart might be a better choice; if you have too many lines, a bar chart or table might be more appropriate. If the data don’t change enough over time, consider using text.

Pie charts

Data visualization specialists like Edward Tufte dislike pie charts, but Hyatt believes that they can serve a function when the aim isn’t to do any precision comparisons.

Do

  • use pie charts to show parts of a whole.

Don’t

  • use fewer than three or more than about six slices.
  • use more than one pie to compare apples and oranges.
  • use slices that represent 0%.

If you have too many slices, or the slices are too thin, a bar chart or table might work better. If there are only two slices, summarize the data as text. Changes in time are better compared using a line chart rather than separate pie charts.

Pictographs

We don’t come across too many pictographs in our work, but they can be very effective when done creatively. You can suggest using them at the developmental and substantive editing stages if you think they work well to get the message across.

Do

  • use proportionate size to indicate data.

Don’t

  • use a pictograph just because it looks cool.
  • use three-dimensional objects to represent anything other than volume.

Too often, said Hyatt, when there’s geographically sensitive data, people default to using some kind of map, but maps are not always the most effective choices, especially if you’re expected to compare data between locations. Opt for other types of charts, tables, or text if the data you’re representing is very technical or if it has to be shown precisely.

Further resources

Unconference session for senior editors (EAC conference 2013)

A group of experienced editors gathered for an open discussion at the EAC conference. Especially helpful was that Moira White, Director of Professional Standards on EAC’s National Executive Council (NEC) was there, not only contributing ideas of her own but also promising to take some of our thoughts back to the NEC.

Professional development, technology, and software

How do senior editors find professional development opportunities? What are experienced editors looking for in professional development?

Gisela Temmel mentioned that simply being able to meet other editors and  discuss common problems is enormously helpful. One editor said that keeping up with new software was her biggest challenge, especially as a freelancer. Moira White and Anne Brennan both mentioned the EAC listserv as a great place to keep on top of new developments in software and technology. White told us that some organizations, particularly ones with stringent security checks, are only now just upgrading to Word 2007 (!). By keeping up to date on new releases of common software and playing around with them, editors can set themselves up as consultants to teach users at these organizations about new features.

One editor lamented how unintuitive the proofing tools were on PDFs. I mentioned that InCopy may be an option for some projects; the program allows text changes to a document designed in InDesign without changing its layout. Further, there’s a third-party plug-in that allows designers to accept or reject proofreaders’ changes marked up using Adobe Acrobat’s reviewing tools. (Thanks to Grace Yaginuma for the initial tip about that plug-in.)

One participant made some offhand comment about how complaining to Adobe about its proofing tools would be useless, and I responded by telling the group about the efforts of the American Society for Indexing‘s Digital Trends Task Force (DTTF), which created a working group as part of the International Digital Publishing Forum, the consortium that defined the new EPUB 3 standard. Because the DTTF made itself known to the technology community on an international stage, that small group of indexers was able to voice its  concerns directly to a group of Adobe engineers, and now Adobe InDesign accommodates linked indexes. I remarked that editors should strive to do more of this kind of advocacy. White commented that isolating specific features we as an editing community would like to see in particular programs and presenting those findings to the people who might be able to do something about it sounded like perfect projects for task forces to undertake. According to White, the NEC has found that creating task forces and assigning people specific tasks has led to increased efficacy in EAC volunteer efforts.

On that note, one of the members raised the possibility of resource task force dedicated to looking at the possibility of creating a third edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

Mentoring

How do experienced editors approach mentoring junior editors? Some members of the group have had bad experiences with mentoring, saying that some people “can suck you dry.” These editors have lost motivation to mentor because of how much time and effort mentoring has taken, “and then those editors go and set themselves up as your competition!”

Mentoring is often done on a volunteer basis, but is there a possibility of charging junior editors for your time and billing your time as consulting? An alternative to that model suggested by some editors in the group was to apply for  small business grants that exist to support interns.

David Holt, editor at OptiMYz Magazine, said that the time he spends coaching interns on copy editing when they start definitely pays off later on. Janice Dyer said that she’s had success mentoring but that it’s very important to set clear boundaries when agreeing to mentoring someone. Most of the people she has mentored haven’t been looking for editing advice; rather they’ve looked for tips about ways to find work, ways to improve their resumes, and so on.

I mentioned that once you’ve mentored someone once, those that follow will often come with the same questions. Keep an archive of the information you give out so that you can reuse and repurpose it. Moira White concurred, telling us that she takes this approach with clients as well: she’s developed a standard fact sheet outlining to clients the different levels of editing and giving guidelines about how long the work will take.

***

The discussion was lively, and it was still going on when we had to clear out of the room to make way for the next session. Many of our topics aren’t necessarily unique to senior editors, but I enjoyed hearing the perspective of those in the room.

Gael Spivak and Lisa Goodlet—Volunteering as professional development (EAC conference 2013)

Gael Spivak and Lisa Goodlet are both seasoned volunteers, for EAC and beyond. They shared some of their insights on the benefits of volunteering and tips to get the most out of your volunteering experiences.

Volunteering, said Spivak, is a good way to get training. She quoted the 70/20/10 formula for learning:

  • 70% comes from real-life and on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem solving
  • 20% comes from feedback and from working with role models
  • 10% comes from formal training.

Getting professional development from volunteering is like getting it from a course, only you’re paying with your time rather than with your money.

Volunteering lets you try something new without having to worry about getting fired. Goodlet told us that one of her first introductions to editing was when she volunteered as a proofreader for Project Gutenberg. You can also use volunteering to test whether you’d be a good fit for a particular type of job or career. Both Spivak and Goodlet emphasized the importance of asking for feedback on your work, even when you’re volunteering.

If you work alone, volunteering can give you team experience and let you meet valuable contacts. If you work in an office and aren’t in a management position, volunteering can offer you the opportunity to gain experience that you can’t get at work (strategic planning, project management, etc.). You can branch out beyond your usual skill set and develop negotiating skills and flexibility (since volunteer-run groups can sometimes move slowly and have different or evolving hierarchies and reporting systems). Goodlet quoted an HR consultant in suggesting that you shouldn’t separate your paid work from your volunteer work on your CV—experience is experience.

Spivak told us that, as conference co-chair in 2012, she learned about marketing and communications; in her many other EAC volunteer positions (director of volunteer relations for EAC, EAC governance task force member, National Capital Region branch membership chair), she has gained experience that she couldn’t get at her job and at her current level, including coordination, strategic planning, and policy development, which are promising to open up new opportunities and roles for her at work. Beyond her volunteer work with EAC, Spivak also writes, edits, and serves as webmaster for Not Just Tourists—Ottawa.

Goodlet said that she got her first office experience through volunteering, which allowed her to get higher-paying summer jobs than she would have gotten otherwise. As NCR branch membership chair and 2012 conference speaker coordinator, she made a lot of valuable contacts and gained project management experience. By volunteering, Goodlet also learned about herself: she’s discovered that she’s better suited to in-house positions rather than freelancing. She also volunteers as a Girl Guide leader and Humane Society foster parent.

If you decide to volunteer, said Spivak and Goodlet,

approach it strategically

  • Do you want to get better at something you know how to do or learn something different? Understand your goals before you plan how to achieve them.
  • Do you want to gain or improve a specific skill (e.g., indexing, medical editing)? Look for organizations that deal with these areas and see if they have volunteer opportunities.
  • Do you want to do something at the branch level or nationally? You can have input on how an organization is run by volunteering at the national level.

approach it consciously

  • How much time do you want to spend? Don’t overcommit yourself.
  • Do you want to volunteer long term or for a one-off project or event?
  • Are you interested in the opportunity? Just because the opportunity is there doesn’t mean you have to take it.

Approach it creatively

  • What are the secondary benefits of the volunteering opportunity? Making contacts, helping others, or simply getting out of the house are all good reasons to volunteer.
  • Do you want to use your editing skills or branch out into other areas? Some people don’t want to do for a hobby what they do for a job.

Spivak added that EAC is developing a new volunteer directory that will connect people to volunteer opportunities at the branch and national levels. People can register in the directory and specify what kinds of opportunities (short- versus long-term, branch versus national) they might be interested in, and this information will be shared with committee chairs who are looking for help.

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(A reminder that volunteering for EAC in an editorial capacity can earn you credential maintenance points for certification, precisely because volunteering can be enormously instructive professional development and make you a better editor.)

Helena Aalto and Laurel Boone—Good Reads: Fiction for adult literacy and ESL learners (EAC conference 2013)

Good Reads is a project spearheaded by ABC Life Literacy Canada and funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) to address a shortage of pleasure reading books for adult literacy and ESL learners. Over the past three years, Good Reads has worked with Edmonton-based Grass Roots Press to publish nineteen short, easy-reading books by well-known Canadian authors; the aim of this series was to increase reading engagement and reading confidence, turning learners into lifelong readers. With the project just wrapping up, project manager Helena Aalto and editor Laurel Boone spoke at the EAC conference about their work.

Good Reads was inspired by a similar initiative in the UK, known as Quick Reads, which launched in 2006. Aalto told us that Good Reads sought out established Canadian authors with an adaptable writing style who were interested in the challenge of writing compelling stories using accessible language. Among those who accepted the challenge were Tish Cohen, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Joy Fielding, Rabindranath Maharaj, Frances Itani, and Robert Hough—names that librarians and literacy educators would know well and would be enthusiastic in promoting to readers. Robert Hough documented his experiences as a Good Reads author in a Quill & Quire article, “Not as Easy as It Looks.” Although the books were short, they often went through many revisions to meet the guidelines for adult literacy learners.

These books, around 12,000 words each, had to be adult-interest stories—these were not kids’ books—with plots that would encourage readers to continue reading, using devices such as cliff-hanger chapter endings. As Boone told us, they had to have adult frames of reference and adult complexities. Authors were encouraged to minimize changes in perspective and time; to introduce only a few characters, each with a distinct name; and to identify speakers in dialogue. Boone, who described Good Reads as “the best project of my life,” edited the books with the understanding that “readers deserve our very best. These readers are adults, and they know a lot.” Her secret intention was for no one to notice the text’s low reading level. Boone’s description of her editorial process was fascinating.

Structural editing

Boone started by assessing the structure of the whole book. Each book had to be suitable for individuals, individuals with tutors, classes, and ESL learners. As such, the chapters had to be approximately equal in length, and they had to stand alone but also work together as a whole. Paragraphs had to be short but varied.

The plot had to be absolutely tight, with no loose ends. Continuity had to be perfect, because, as Boone explained, non-readers’ memories are better than the memories of most readers. Authors had to make any changes in time or place perfectly clear, using devices such as line spaces, changes in verb tense, or changes in person as clues for the reader.

Characters had to have distinct, easy-to-read names. More importantly, they had to be true to life, and through the stories, their motives and personal growth had to be clear. Boone encouraged the authors to make most of the main characters fairly agreeable, because beginning readers are more likely to identify with likeable characters.

Finally, the setting and context had to be familiar.

Stylistic editing

Boone edited toward the goal of a certain reading level (Microsoft Word allows you to check a document’s readability statistics). Literacy learners read word by word or in very small gulps, and the meaning of each of these gulps must be clear. No word could be out of place. Boone gave an example of dangling modifiers: as seasoned readers, we’d laugh, but we’d understand the intent of the sentence; beginning readers, however, would not. While performing a stylistic edit, Boone focused on the following areas:

Information

Boone developed strategies to offer readers complete information without explicitly explaining. “I don’t wish to be told that there’s something I don’t know when I’m in the middle of a story,” she said, and phrases like “that is” or “meaning,” followed by an explanation, can come off as patronizing. She encouraged authors to bury descriptions in the context (e.g., “Victor would know where he could sell his million-dollar Picasso painting to pay off his debts”), and keep terminology consistent.

Fact checking, explained Boone, was essential, because adult readers are very knowledgeable, and errors breed mistrust. For example, she learned the difference between a pipe wrench and a monkey wrench and was careful to make sure the right term was used. Otherwise, readers could too easily dismiss the story as stupid and stop reading altogether.

Boone also looked out for situations where there was too much non-essential information. For example, an author had written out a series of American cities as train destinations, but the names of the cities themselves weren’t important to the story. Names can be hard to read and confusing, so she recommended simplifying the sentence simply to refer to “cities across the United States.”

Sentences

Sentences in Good Reads books had to be short—typically fewer than fifteen words long, and certainly no more than twenty words long. They had to be simply constructed but still varied, with superior transitions. The end of one sentence must lead on to the next one. Parallelism was paramount, and she tried to eliminate passive voice, weak uses of “to be,” and adverbs ending in “-ly.” “Everything ought to be in the context and characters,” Boone explained.

Dialogue

It’s easy to lose track of the speakers in dialogue, Boone told us, but saying “he said, she said, he said, etc.” can get tedious. She encouraged authors to use frequent attributions but to vary the style.

Vocabulary

Boone encouraged authors to use common words of one or two syllables (not counting -ed or -ing) in general, but there are some longer words (e.g., university) that are familiar and some short words that may not be. Any substitutions of terminology, then, had to be precise and sensitive to adult experiences, and technical words had to be correct. Swearing and sex are part of adult experiences, of course, so Boone found ways of including these themes while making sure they were not so explicit that they would make readers or their tutors uncomfortable.

Copy editing

The copy editing was handled by an editor working for Grass Roots Press, but Boone did offer some guidelines, including a style sheet for each project. In particular, she encouraged using commas for absolute clarity (e.g., around “too” and even short clauses), explaining that commas give the eye and the mind a break. Speakers’ individual voices were respected in dialogue, but standard grammar, punctuation, and spelling were enforced in the narrative.

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Supporting the text, Aalto told us, were clear page layouts with a readable typeface and a lot of white space . The books were given eye-catching covers. Beyond the books, the Good Reads website features further resources for readers and instructors, including videos of interviews with the authors, text of the first chapter of each book, and audio of the authors reading from their books. Teachers could also download a free guide for each title. The series has done quite well, Aalto was proud to say, although she added that there’s no way HRSDC would fund such a series today; all literacy efforts are going into workplace training, leaving little room for pleasure reading. However, Orca Books has started a similar series called Rapid Reads, and Grass Roots has committed to distributing those titles.

As for Boone, she found the project extremely rewarding, explaining that the usual pleasure and intimacy of working with authors was increased by working together toward an altruistic objective. She said that the ordinary principles of effective writing are easily forgotten by fluent, university-level readers, writers, and editors but that simpler is always better, even for complex ideas. Practising simple expression can help sharpen thought.

EAC Publications and the new Editing Canadian English (EAC conference 2013)

EAC’s Publications Committee gave us an update on its activities, primarily on its work developing a new edition of Editing Canadian English. The second edition of ECE is showing its age, said editor-in-chief Karen Virag, and it’s due for a revision. The committee gathered teams of experienced editors to go over every chapter of ECE, word by word, and make recommendations on the content, addressing such questions as whether there is such a thing as Canadian usage of punctuation. In keeping with the trend of similar language resources, the next edition of ECE will be exclusively online. Subscriptions will cost $30 per year, and it will launch in 2014.

Beth Macfie, one of the managing editors, then explained how the committee has spent the last year and a half analyzing the existing ECE to figure out how to make it into a modern product. The title of the new publication will be Editing Canadian English: The Guide for Editors, Writers, and Everyone Who Works with Words, to emphasize that it is aimed at a much broader audience than just editors. ECE will explain what Canadian English is, how to handle special situations in language, and where to find additional information. The publication will feature sections about

  • editorial roles
  • editorial niches
  • an editor’s legal responsibilities (including in cases of subcontracting) and where to keep up to date on new legal developments
  • Canadian usage
  • inclusive language
  • spelling
  • compounds and hyphenation
  • capitalization
  • abbreviation
  • punctuation
  • measurements
  • documentation
  • working with bilingual documents

The new edition’s electronic format will allow the Publications Committee to update and annotate the content as time goes by. The aim, explained Macfie, is to provide something that no other publication provides.

Over the next year, as the publication takes shape, the committee will need more researchers and writers, copy editors, proofreaders, and beta testers.

Finally, production editor Carolyn Pisani gave us a glimpse of how this new publication will be implemented. She recruited volunteers to test existing databases that provide a similar reference function, using the resources as they were working to get a sense of the systems’ advantages and disadvantages in applied, real-world situations. Volunteers answered an eight-question survey to evaluate these databases for writing and editing, including

  • What makes this online database user friendly?
  • What did you like in terms of ease of use, thoroughness, etc.?
  • What seemed to be missing? What didn’t you like?

Pisani is compiling this feedback and will work together with EAC’s executive director, Carolyn Burke, to find a team that can handle the technological implementation of the new ECE.

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Certification Steering Committee co-chairs Anne Brennan and Janice Dyer also presented at the same plenary session, but whatever I have not written about before will be covered in important updates to the Certification section of the EAC website. I’ll tweet or post the link once the updates have happened.