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IVA CHEUNG..
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Images

Slides

Four-frame cartoon. The first frame shows bespectacled editor sitting in front of her computer. She says to curly-haired editor, "Putting the finishing touches on my presentation for the editors' conference." Second frame: Curly-haired editor stands behind bespectacled editor. She says, "Wait. What are you…" and bespectacled editor replies, "I'm adjusting the kerning so that it looks *slightly* off on each slide." Third panel: Curly-haired editor looks ahead in silence. Fourth frame, she looks at bespectacled editor and says, "Why are you like this?"

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Author Iva CheungPosted on May 25, 2018May 25, 2018Format ImageCategories Design, Editing, Editors Canada (formerly Editors' Association of Canada)Tags ComicsLeave a comment on Slides

Hill

Four-frame cartoon. Bespectacled editor and bespectacled translator stand at the base of a hill with windswept hair. Frame 1: Editor says, "So. This is the one, huh?" Translator replies, "Yeah." Frame 2: Editor says, "You know, you don't have to—" and the translator interrupts. "I do. For me." Frame 3: Editor looks down, sullen. Translator says, "Well, I guess this is goodbye." Frame 4: Pull out to see three hills. One on the left is labelled "Literally." One on the right is labelled "Beg the question." The one the translator begins to climb, bow in hand and quiver on belt, is labelled "Comprise." Editor says, "Godspeed, foolhardy soldier. Godspeed."

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Author Iva CheungPosted on May 1, 2018Format ImageCategories EditingTags Comics, UsageLeave a comment on Hill

Efficiency

Single-frame cartoon. Curly-haired editor asks, "How’s your work going?" Bespectacled editor, working on her laptop, replies, "Great! So far I’ve attended two webinars, watched five videos, and listened to a twenty-episode podcast series on how to stop procrastinating and be more productive. "

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Author Iva CheungPosted on April 1, 2018Format ImageCategories FreelancingTags Comics1 Comment on Efficiency

Night terror

Editor and partner are asleep in bed for the first two frames of a cartoon. In the third frame, the editor jolts awake and yells, "i FORGOT TO CHECK THE RUNNING FOOTER!" Partner mutters "unnngh…"

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Author Iva CheungPosted on March 1, 2018March 1, 2018Format ImageCategories Editing, Editors, ProofreadingTags Checklists, ComicsLeave a comment on Night terror

The Grammar Guru

Five-frame cartoon. Frame 1: Two editors are sitting at a table in a café. There's a man reading at the next table. One editor has a laptop and says, "I’m starting a weekly column called “The Grammar Guru” in my community newspaper. Quick—hit me with some spurious but plausible grammar and usage rules!" Frame 2: Bespectacled editor says, "Um, let’s see… “Don’t use an article before words like ‘alcoholic’ and ‘albatross’ because ‘al’ means ‘the’ in the original Arabic.” Curly-haired editor says, "I like it! What else have you got?" Frame 3: Bespectacled editor says, "It is wrong to spell 'doughnut' D-O-N-U-T." Curly-haired editor says, "How's this: “The shortened spelling is a symptom of lazy writers’ systematic dismantling of the English language.” Bespectacled editor says, "Perfect." Frame 4: Bespectacled editor says, "“For gender neutrality, use ‘huperson’ rather than ‘human.’” Bespectacled editor says, "Ooh, that'll get us some letters!" Final frame: The man at the next table says, "You're both horrible people." Curly-haired editor says, "You just don't GET our ART, Todd."

Play along! Tweet some #SpuriousButPlausible grammar and usage rules the Grammar Guru could feature in a column. Here’s a blank if you’d like to put them in cartoon format, too:

Blank for spurious but plausible grammar and usage rules. Man at next table looks over as bespectacled editor proposes a ridiculous rule curly-haired editor can use in her grammar column.

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Author Iva CheungPosted on February 1, 2018Format ImageCategories Editing, LanguageTags Comics, Grammar, Usage1 Comment on The Grammar Guru

APA style

11-frame cartoon. Frame 1 shows the outside of the American Psychological Association headquarters. Frame 2: People are meeting around a boardroom table. The meeting chair says, "And now Michelle will give us an update on the APA Style study." Frames 3 to 8 show a woman standing next to a projection screen. She says, overt those frames, "Thanks, George. We have a random sample of the country’s editors under observation. APA Style insists on unnecessary periods, spaces, and italics in reference lists. We’re trying to see the effect of visual clutter on the speed of cognitive processing. We’ve also deliberately introduced an inconsistency in the way titles should appear in the main body of the text compared with references—an almost homeopathic dose of cognitive dissonance. We’re studying information-retrieval expectations—and what happens when those expectations aren’t met—by giving the Publications Manual a barely usable index. And we tried to sow chaos by re-establishing two spaces after periods after editors have spent a decade training writers to use one. We’re not sure the level of chaos is high enough for us to see an effect, though. Next edition we plan to tell writers to use two spaces after question marks and three after periods." Frame 9 shows the boardroom and the chair saying, "What’s the endgame?" Frame 10: the presenter says, "We’re investigating how many nonsensical rules we have to establish before the editors collectively realize we’re messing with them for science." Final frame: the chair says, "Excellent work, team. Keep it up."

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Author Iva CheungPosted on January 2, 2018Format ImageCategories Academic publishing, Editing, EditorsTags Academic editing, Comics, Style6 Comments on APA style

Intensive purposes

Single-frame cartoon. A lady sits at a desk at a company called "Writer's Brain, Inc." and says to a sad-looking acorn, "I'm sorry, but the position's been filled." Behind her, high-fiving, are an egg and a cob of corn.

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Author Iva CheungPosted on December 1, 2017Format ImageCategories LanguageTags Comics, Usage1 Comment on Intensive purposes

Passive voice

12-frame cartoon. An acquaintance says to the bespectacled editor, "People think they know what the passive voice is, but they misidentify it all the time." He continues in frame 2: "One trick is to add 'by zombies' to the end of the sentence. If it makes sense, it's passive!" In frame 3, bespectacled editor says, "Oh! So, like…" Frame 4 shows her driving by a horde of zombies. The caption reads "I drove…BY ZOMBIES." Frame 5, the acquaintance says, "Well, no—I guess that's still active…" and bespectacled editor says, "Or maybe like…" Frame 6 shows the two editors having a picnic next to a group of zombies, also having a picnic. One zombie says to another "Brains?" The other responds, "Brains!" Caption says "We had a picnic…BY ZOMBIES." In frame 7, the acquaintance says, "Well, that's not passive, but…" and the bespectacled editor interrupts, "Or do you mean…" Frame 8 shows the two editors at a table at a venue with a stage. A zombie band is playing on stage and singing "But it's too late to say you're sorry." The caption reads, "We listened to music…BY ZOMBIES." In Frame 10, the acquaintance says, "OK, well, we might have to rethink…" and the bespectacled editor interrupts, "Maybe something like…" Frame 10 shows the back jacket of a book. The "About the Author" section at the bottom shows an author photo featuring a couple of zombies. The caption reads, "I read a book…BY ZOMBIES." In frame 11, the acquaintance says, "All right! You've made your point!" And the bespectacled editor responds, "My point has been made." Last frame, the acquaintance says, "Are you always this much of a jackass?" and the bespectacled editor responds, "Oh, goodness, yes."

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Author Iva CheungPosted on November 5, 2017November 26, 2017Format ImageCategories Editing, EditorsTags Comics, Grammar1 Comment on Passive voice

Hell

Four-panel comic strip. Panel 1: Bespectacled editor is chained to the wall in hell while the devil stands by. There is a computer desk in the room. The editor says, "This isn't so bad." Panel 2: A man approaches the computer desk. The editor says, "Wait—is that my author?" Panel 3: The man is seated at the computer desk and mutters, "Let's see... H-T-T-P-colon-backslash..." The editor says, "Is he…is he keying the URLs into his bibliography??" Panel 4: The man continues to type, muttering, "ampersand-U-T-M-underscore…" The editor tilts her head back and screams, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

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Author Iva CheungPosted on October 1, 2017Format ImageCategories EditingTags ComicsLeave a comment on Hell

Branding

Five-frame cartoon. In the first two frames, bespectacled editor is at her desk, talking on a cell phone. She says, “Oh, hi. This is probably a weird question, but I’m editing a book that mentions your organization, and I notice on your website the name sometimes has an apostrophe and sometimes doesn’t. Can you tell me which one you’d prefer?” In the third frame, we see two people in an office. One has a phone in her hand. She says to her coworker, “Hey, Doug. Someone wants to know if our name’s supposed to have an apostrophe.” Doug shrugs. In the fourth frame, she says into the phone “Yeah, we don’t care.” In the last frame, we see a close-up of bespectacled editor. She is sweating, and she is thinking, intensely, "BUT…I CARE."

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Author Iva CheungPosted on August 31, 2017Format ImageCategories EditingTags Comics, Fact checkingLeave a comment on Branding

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