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Book review: Quite Literally

Journalist Wynford Hicks first published Quite Literally: Problem Words and How to Use Them in 2004, but the paperback edition became available only in the last year. Focusing on British English, this book is part usage dictionary, part writing and grammar guide, and part vocabulary builder. Hicks begins by acknowledging the divide between prescriptivists and descriptivists when it comes to usage (or “conservatives” and “radicals” as he calls them) and says, “In their extreme form both these positions are ridiculous and unhelpful. They make the problem of problem words worse.” He adds, “Many of these contentious grammatical points are difficult – perhaps impossible – to resolve. My intention in this book is to provide practical advice, but nobody can claim to have written the last word on any of them.”

Hicks’s alphabetical list includes words that are often misspelled (e.g., “accidentally, not accidently”), words that are often confused (e.g., rack versus wrack), and words that are often misused (e.g. “anticipate is often misused as a pompous variant of expect (we don’t anticipate rain). It is also used by careful writers to mean forestall or act in advance or come before.”). Hicks also covers some points about punctuation—the serial comma, for example, and the correct use of square brackets)—as well as writing style, as in this excerpt:

variation

Fowler used the term ‘elegant variation’ for the habit of calling a spade a tool or a horticultural implement to avoid repeating the word spade. It was a fault, he said, committed by ‘second-rate writers, those intent rather on expanding themselves prettily than on conveying their meaning clearly’. What he called the fatal influence was the advice given to young writers never to use the same word twice in a sentence.

It’s as easy now as it was in Fowler’s day (the 1920s) to find examples of this:

IPC took her [Sly Bailey] on in 1989 and by 1994, aged 31, she was appointed to the board of the publishing company, becoming its youngest ever member. The Spurs fan continued to work her way up through the ranks. (Guardian)

Part of Roseanne’s behaviour can be explained by the comic’s natural competitiveness. (John Lahr)

In this case too why not ‘her’ for ‘the comic’s’?…

This kind of variation (David Beckham… the footballer, Zadie Smith, the novelist, Brad Pitt… the actor) is always irritating and occasionally confusing. (pp. 236–37)

As this example shows, throughout the book Hicks draws from published works to show that even seasoned, professional writers misuse words in ways that can misrepresent information or confuse readers. Hicks’s focus on the audience is one of the reasons I like this book: although he teaches you the correct definitions of autarchy (absolute power) and autarky (self-sufficiency), he adds, “the two are confused and neither is necessary – why not use absolute power and self-sufficiency?” (p. 18) Similarly, after explaining why “beg the question” doesn’t mean “raise the question” or “avoid the question,” he advises, “Use beg the question in its traditional sense only if you are confident your readers will understand you.” (p. 186) Context is everything, Hicks aptly conveys. Words like obloquy (disgrace) and otiose  (superfluous) may have their place in literary works, even though they may sound pretentious and confuse readers in news reporting. (And if I were better at retaining information I read, I would have found Hicks’s book an entertaining way to learn new words.)

Throughout the book, Hicks continually acknowledges that usage changes and language evolves—something many grammar guides fail to do. I also like that Hicks points out important differences between American and British usage:

homely

in American refers to looks and means ugly; homely in British refers to character and means friendly, kindly…Use this word with care to avoid confusion and offence. (p. 104)

table

in Britain to table a proposal is to put it on the agenda (to bring it to the table) whereas in the US it’s to withdraw it from the agenda indefinitely (to take it away from the table).

Quite Literally is an interesting, engaging, often humorous read, but for the professional editor, that’s where its role should end. Because the book tries to cover so many aspects of writing in its 250 pages—style, usage, grammar, spelling—it does a thorough job of none of them, and it shouldn’t be considered an authoritative reference by any working editor, who’d be well advised to invest in an actual usage dictionary. I’ve also never understood why books such as Hicks’s attempt to cover spelling at all (unless it’s for padding); those problem words are either completely misspelled and would come up in a spell check or are just variants (“realise, not realize”) whose use depends on a publication’s house style more than anything else. Still, I would recommend Quite Literally as an easily digestible glimpse into British English usage. Hicks offers readers a good reminder of the value of clarity and succinctness, and even veteran editors will learn from the book.

And what does Hicks say about “literally”?

literally

features in all style and usage guides. Don’t use it when you don’t mean it, they say. ‘He literally exploded with anger’ is absurd. But do use it if you need to make clear that a stale metaphor is, for once, an accurate statement. ‘He literally died laughing’ could be true…

Others seem to think that by putting ‘almost’ in front of ‘literally’ they can make it work:

The people of the rebuilt Oradour lived, almost literally, within this history. (Adam Nossiter)

But how can something be ‘almost literally’ true? Either it is true or it isn’t…

Because literally is so generally misused, some people feel that they have to add an intensifier like ‘quite’ – to say ‘I really mean it’… In turn ‘quite literally’ becomes the standard phrase… And so for people who want to say ‘I really mean it’, a further intensifier is needed. Both examples come from the Guardian:

Lee Westwood has backed himself to win the Sun City Golf Challenge after an abysmal year by his standards. Quite literally, in fact. The Workshop player put a sizeable wager on himself.

In Sicily one Vittorio Greco has gone to his grave. Quite literally, in fact. Vittorio was checking progress on a family tomb when he slipped, struck and died on the spot.

Quite literally, in fact – or literally, literally, literally. Why not give this word a rest? (pp. 131–33)

Use hyphens wisely: Discretion is advised

Having just educated two of my designer friends—both award-winning veterans of the book industry—about the discretionary/optional hyphen, I realized that maybe not everyone knows about it after all. Convincing designers to embrace the discretionary hyphen can mean saving a lot of proofing time (or, at the very least, eliminating a proofing worry), so I’ve found myself proselytizing, and I might as well do that here, too.

What they are

You’re familiar with the good ol’-fashioned regular hyphen (like the one in “ol’-fashioned”), also known as the hard hyphen. If a line breaks after a hard hyphen, it’s no big deal. In contrast, you wouldn’t want a line break after the hyphen in a phone number, say, or a numeral-unit adjective (e.g., 4-ton jack), and in those situations you’d want to use a nonbreaking hyphen.

But let’s say you’re reading a proof where a word has broken where you don’t want it to break—e.g., mi•crowave instead of micro•wave. What happens when you mark up the proof asking the designer to rebreak the word?

Well, the way many designers have been told to solve the problem is simply to add a (hard) hyphen where they want the break to happen. The approach seems to resolve the issue, but it’s not an elegant fix. What they should be using is a discretionary hyphen (Ctrl/Command + Shift + – in InDesign), which appears if the word breaks at the end of the line but remains invisible when it doesn’t.

Let’s say the designer has added a hard hyphen to “microwave” to make it break as

micro-
wave

If you made text changes that pushed “micro” to the following line, for example, you’d end up with “micro-wave” on one line, and the proofreader would have to ask for that hyphen to be deleted.

Using a discretionary hyphen would mean that “microwave” would continue to break as

micro-
wave

if it flowed over two lines but appear as “microwave” otherwise.

(Apparently, if you add a discretionary hyphen before a word, InDesign prevents that word from being broken at all—handy for some proper nouns. More information about hyphens in InDesign can be found here.)

Why they help

Beyond the fact that the proofreader no longer has to worry about designer-introduced hard hyphens, discretionary hyphens are especially helpful for texts that are destined for more than one format or medium. Many publishers create their ebooks from their InDesign files, and because EPUB text can reflow, hard hyphens introduced to break a word in a desirable place for the print edition are bound to show up where they aren’t needed in the ebook. Either a proofreader has to go through the ebook text and remove them, or the publisher leaves them in and effectively sacrifices some of its editorial standards in its ebooks. Similarly, reprints (e.g., when a hardcover is reformatted as a mass-market paperback) would be a lot less work for the proofreader if designer-introduced hard hyphens were no longer a concern.

What they could mean to editors

We could nip the problem in the bud a bit earlier in the production process if copy editors also used discretionary hyphens (called optional hyphens in Microsoft Word—shortcut key: Ctrl/Command + -) after common prefixes in closed compounds. (As if copy editors needed any more responsibility!) It’s probably impossible to anticipate every possible bad word break, but a few global searches would be fairly easy to do at the copy-editing stage and would eliminate a lot of the distraction for the proofreader.

What to keep in mind

Ideally, all optional hyphens in Word would translate seamlessly into discretionary hyphens in InDesign. Apparently the two programs don’t always play nicely together, though, so if you’re a copy editor prepping a file for design, it might be worth sending a few test files to the designer you’re working with, to figure out if the special characters, including nonbreaking spaces, nonbreaking hyphens, and discretionary hyphens, among others, will come through.

Also, discretionary hyphens may cause problems for online text because different standards treat them differently, some translating discretionary hyphens into hard hyphens. Again, you may want to test some files, particularly in an ebook workflow, to see if inputting discretionary hyphens is worth the copy editor’s time or if they should be inserted by the designer and only as needed for the print publication. Luckily, designers can just as easily search an InDesign file for discretionary hyphens they’ve inserted and remove them for the ebook version.

How you can make the world a more discretionary place

Next time you’re proofreading and you notice one of those manually added hyphens that buggers up a word, just mention discretionary hyphens to the designer. The designers I spoke to were happy to learn about them and were excited about the prospect of saving proofreading time and, more importantly, not inadvertently introducing errors.

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.

***

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.

***

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.

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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.)