President’s report
by Stephanie Holt AE
Phew! We’ve made it (almost) to the end of the year.
I hope you’ve all been able to enjoy easing of restrictions, catching up with loved ones, and reconnecting with colleagues and clients. A recent message from one of our committee members mentioned she was ‘out and about’; it struck me what a lovely little phrase that is, and how much we take for granted that easy mix of freedom and busy-ness.
While it’s often hard to predict what will endure, in the midst of tough times, I hope everyone’s found some positives to take with them. For our organisation, Zoom events and recordings have definitely improved choice, access and convenience for members in many ways. That’s not something we want to lose, so expect to see a mix of face-to-face and online activities in future.
Our social media and this newsletter have also had extra importance at this time. It’s great to see so many branch members contributing to this issue of Gatherings.
After such a tough year, you deserve some fun and silliness. Our December end-of-year party, celebrating a very special 50th anniversary, promises just that. It’s time to kick up our heels, glam it up for Zoom, share some memories, and bid 2020 good riddance.
Finally, we are delighted to have Lan Wang taking on the role of IPEd Director from the branch, given her significant involvement with the branch and the profession over many years. Welcome Lan.
Contact Stephanie Holt at edvic.president@iped-editors.org.
Editors Victoria archives seek your contributions
The committee is interested in hearing from anyone who has paper archives about the earlier days of EdVic. These might be minutes, newsletters, working papers or public documents about conferences or other branch activities. The State Library of Victoria collects our newsletter (though holdings are not complete) and materials relating to past society publications are in their archive. When we have a fuller idea of what other material is out there, we will continue liaising with the library’s archivist to discover if these items are suitable to lodge at the State Library to be preserved.
Please contact Communications Officer Bridget Blair with any information: edvic.communication@iped-editors.org.
New members
EdVic is pleased to welcome members who have joined or upgraded since the last issue of Gatherings.
Welcome to our new professional member, Chloe Ada Jenkins, and our new associate members, Christine Balint, Andrea Josephine Barton, Kathryn Elizabeth Tafra and Elissa Hill.
We look forward to seeing you at workshops and events and encourage you to make the most of IPEd’s networks for news and support.
New member profile
Chloe Jenkins
Name: Chloe Jenkins
Q: How long have you been an editor and how did your career begin?
A: I’ve been an editor for four years. After completing my Associate Degree at RMIT, I was lucky enough to find an editorial internship program for a B2B (business-to-business) industry magazine, which started off as proofreading and other miscellaneous editorial tasks, and ended with me progressing in the company until I was Head of Production.
Q: What type of editing makes up most of your work?
A: I’ve been really lucky and my role is really diverse, so I get to do a blend of substantive editing, copyediting, proofreading and more.
Q: What aspect of the profession do you find most challenging?
A: Building a good network of colleagues and contacts. It takes dedication to make time for networking and it’s something I’m putting more effort into, as I miss the community of like-minded people who are as interested in editing as I am.
Q: How would you like to build your skills as an editor?
A: I would like to develop a broader understanding of the different types of editing, as my experience has had a more pointed focus on trade publications. I’m also looking forward to continuing to build my skills and knowledge by participating in IPEd’s activities.
Q: What are you looking forward to, now you’re a member?
A: A mixture of being able to meet new people and attend all the learning events possible. I’ve already attended a few events and the breadth of knowledge is amazing — more than just passing on the technical know-how. I’ve found the speakers IPEd invites are happy to share their experiences and honest perspectives on the industry. They also encourage open dialogue, so if there’s a topic you’re interested in, they will do their best to provide useful information.
Report on event — Demystifying educational publishing
Jocelyn Hargrave
by Marie Pietersz
On 28 October, 56 IPEd members joined EdVic’s Zoom video-conferencing to hear Jocelyn Hargrave present her talk on demystifying educational publishing. ‘The marginalisation of this academic publishing sector, with particular preference given to trade/literary publishing despite the significance of educational print products making up 40 per cent of all sales in 2018, would have to be a much-needed dialogue in academia and industry,’ Jocelyn said.
Editing in the 21st century
Jocelyn took participants through some of the daily standard practices of the pre-digital years, particularly from 1998 when she obtained her first full-time editing position, and how editorial practices have evolved since then, moving from print to digital.
Some of the practices included marking up pages on paper or screen, working with photo libraries, using photo negatives and lightboxes, checking dyelines, preparing camera-ready copy for printers, and overseeing stripped-in corrections. ‘That could be perceived as the golden age of educational publishing,’ Jocelyn said.
The publishing industry of the 21st-century gig economy has many challenges for editors: a lot of administrative work, scattered staff, increasingly segmented workforces, little involvement of freelancers in the decision-making process, and technology often outpacing skills acquisition.
Editors are visual people and often wear numerous ‘hats’ to complete their work: acting as copyfitters, psychologists, diplomats and conductors. In the gig economy/information age, editors need to be skilled in cohesive teamwork, project management and meeting deadlines and budgets; supportive of one another given the much shorter time frames to produce work; accountable, transparent and patient communicators; and flexible when it comes to bringing ‘romance’ to the text on a page in a commercial environment.
So how can editors, particularly graduates, find work in this competitive digital/information environment?
Editors need to upskill (Adobe InCopy is a good professional tool to learn to use); network with their peers; undertake volunteer work (if necessary) to build up portfolios, especially when attempting to secure freelance work; and become a member of editorial associations to obtain mentoring.
The romance of educational publishing
‘The romance of educational publishing is often overlooked for the nostalgic wonder of literary publishing,’ Jocelyn said. Educational publishing is most often not the first choice of graduates when embarking on a professional career in the publishing industry. They often reluctantly find their way into educational publishing because of the lack of jobs in their preferred sector or the lack of jobs generally in the industry.
However, Jocelyn urges graduates to ponder the wonders of educational publishing — for its diversity of content and people (internal and external stakeholders), the professional and personal value of contributing to students’ knowledge, the complexity of working with words and illustrative material on the page, and the challenge all this work presents for the mind.
Jocelyn Hargrave has taught writing, editing and publishing at Monash University and the University of Melbourne since submitting her doctorate in 2016, and is the author of one monograph and numerous articles. She has worked in the educational publishing industry for 23 years and is currently employed as a freelance editor.
Contact Marie Pietersz at edvic.events@iped-editors.org.
Punctuation refresher: solving tricky issues
by Dalida Boustead AE
In October EdVic hosted this two-part workshop, presented by Ann Philpott via Zoom. Ann is a freelance editor, proofreader and indexer. She is also a skilled trainer and has been teaching in the Department of Professional Writing and Editing at Swinburne University of Technology for the past eight and a half years.
The punctuation refresher course comprised a two-hour workshop on Saturday 17 October and a one-hour Q&A session on Saturday 31 October.
Participants were encouraged to complete a pre-course handout with exercises. Ann worked through the solutions in the first session, demonstrating and discussing the challenges, the nuances of meaning related to punctuation choice and placement, and the relevant rules, noting any differences in recommended usage between the sixth and seventh editions of the Style manual.
Punctuation marks discussed included commas, semicolons, colons, brackets, dashes, hyphens, quotation marks, ellipses and apostrophes. Ann’s excellent examples of problematic or tricky punctuation scenarios helped highlight the gaps in our knowledge and equip us with skills to resolve tricky issues. As one participant aptly put it: ‘Ann stripped any confusion away from those pesky punctuation marks.’
In the second workshop, Ann worked through some great questions and examples of challenging punctuation issues sent in by participants.
Both sessions were engaging, informative and enjoyable. ‘An excellent session that helps to fine-tune knowledge’, commented one participant, while another said, ‘Ann Philpott was knowledgeable and such a great communicator’. Thank you, Ann, for such a valuable, inspiring workshop.
It’s worth mentioning that because Punctuation refresher: solving tricky issues was a sold-out event, an opportunity arose for collaboration between branches of IPEd, with Editors NSW and Editors Aotearoa New Zealand also running this course. EdVic is very grateful to Sara Kitaoji, Professional Development Officer for EdNSW, who assisted the Victorian Professional Development team to host our workshops.
Editing references and bibliographies: principles and practice with Jocelyn Hargrave
by Jane Fitzpatrick
EdVic’s fourth foray into the new world of Zoom training was held on 7 and 14 November. Trainer Jocelyn Hargrave is an editor, author and educator with extensive experience in educational publishing and a passion for all things editorial. The course was presented in two parts: Part I, Principles, and Part II, Practice.
Jocelyn began with a historical overview of using referencing in text. Although the styles and systems have changed significantly, the essential role has remained constant: that is, for an author to acknowledge the work and ideas of earlier authors.
When editing citations, our task is to ensure that citations are presented clearly and consistently, to help the author’s credibility and help readers find original sources for cited material. There are also important legal dimensions. Jocelyn explored the many aspects of the editor’s role, including decisions about style, how referencing systems interact with page design, and how to assess substantive concerns about the references component of a manuscript.
With limited time available, instead of diving into the intricacies of each referencing style, this part toured the key features of the most common styles. Jocelyn also presented a detailed case study of Harvard style. Part I concluded with an interactive quiz and a Q&A session, and participants were sent an exercise to complete before the next workshop.
Part II began with a review of the exercise that asked participants to consider the materials and approach an editor could use to tackle a references-editing task. We discussed how we’d assess the manuscript, what the client should provide (e.g. the author brief, house style, journal rules). Jocelyn quoted this golden advice: ‘Where the author has a system that is reasonable and consistent, or even fairly consistent, stick with it.’ (Mackenzie, J 2011, The editor’s companion, 2nd edn, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, p. 136.)
This naturally led to a discussion of using your editorial judgement to assess the work and keeping in mind the importance of the references in the scheme of the whole project. Jocelyn reminded participants that pragmatism and efficiency have their place in editing. For example, some tasks might be passed back to the author when necessary.
Finally, Jocelyn gave us a run-through of relevant software and took a close look at EndNote. The information highlighted how citation managers can help authors to produce more accurate citations, and that understanding how they work can help us to edit more efficiently. She closed with tips about common errors and what to look for when copyediting references. Feedback from participants included, ‘The course was informative and engaging’, and it gave ’A solid grounding in what I’ve always found to be a challenging area of editing’.
Jane Fitzpatrick
edvic.vicepres@iped-editors.org
Please share — we’d love more member contributions
by Bridget Blair AE, Communications Officer
This month’s edition of Gatherings has some great articles contributed by EdVic members, namely Karina Smith’s musings on the language of COVID, Cassandra Wright-Dole’s book review, Clare Millar’s announcement of the launch of Leaf mag, Mary-Jo O’Rourke’s report on our book club event and Chloe Jenkins’s new member profile.
Our organisation, and indeed our newsletter, is for and about our members, so we would like to remind you that contributions to the newsletter are always welcome. If you have an editing-related project you would like to announce, have discovered some useful resources or technological tricks you would like to share with others or are feeling inspired to do some creative writing about language or the freelancing life, please consider publishing an article with us.
Articles have a limit of 500 words.
Please send articles, ideas or questions to me at edvic.communication@iped-editors.org.
Chicago comes to Melbourne
by Mary-Jo O’Rourke AE
On 12 November, the Victorian branch of IPEd was delighted to host the world-renowned editor (and author) Carol Saller for a Zoom meeting expertly facilitated by Renée Otmar DE.
Carol is now semi-retired after an illustrious career at the University of Chicago Press, having been a long-time contributor to the Chicago manual of style (CMOS) and chief copyeditor for its 16th edition. She helped create the CMOS Q&A, which has developed a cult-like following over the past 20 years, and out of that came her book The subversive copy editor: advice from Chicago (or, how to negotiate good relationships with your writers, your colleagues, and yourself), now in its 2nd edition, along with her popular blog of the same name.
Charming and witty, Carol was kind enough to share some of her experiences and tips with us. She regards style guides like CMOS firmly as just that — guides — and advocates strongly for the application of three fundamental principles — care, transparency and flexibility — in editing work. Language and grammar change continuously, and the needs of readers must take precedence over any fixed idea of correctness and the strict but unthinking application of rules. Carol relishes telling the two sides in a grammatical or linguistic dispute that they are both right.
IPEd is offering a member discount of 30 per cent on The Subversive Copy Editor (print or eBook editions).