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Spent

CONTENT NOTE: Potty-mouth.

Two-frame cartoon. First frame, bespectacled editor, in this case an author, is on her knees on the floor, her head in her hands. She says to curly-haired editor, who's at her desk, "I'M SO SORRY THE REFERENCES ARE SUCH A MESS! I completely ran out of fucks by the time I got to the back matter!" Second frame: Curly-haired editor goes to comfort bespectacled editor, saying, "It'll be OK. I'll lend you some of mine."

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I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of my billable time fact checking and editing references. Depending on the project schedule, I often wouldn’t mind that kind of work, which could be kind of meditative—I’d put on my favourite music and get ’er done. But under time pressure, the task could be frustrating, especially if I knew that basically nobody would be reading the back matter. And why, I wondered, was reference formatting so hard for authors to get right? Continue reading “Spent”