The third edition of IPEd standards for editing practice was launched in March 2024. We spoke with members of the IPEd Standards Working Party (ISWP) about the process of reviewing and updating IPEd’s cornerstone document. In their own words, they describe why inclusion and equity were their key priorities for the third edition, how they worked together to navigate the various obstacles they faced and how the Standards have influenced their work.
Beginning at the beginning
Updating a 10-year-old document is no mean feat. Updating that document when that decade has brought with it a slew of changes and developments? That’s a bigger task again. One that might seem insurmountable. Where do you even begin? For the members of the ISWP, you begin at the beginning.
Kerry Davies AE, former chair of IPEd, and Julie Ganner AE, president of Editors NSW, were involved in the initial push to set up the revision project in early 2021. The first tasks were to establish the working party and seek submissions on possible changes from IPEd members, committees and external industry bodies. Also on the working party in the early days were then IPEd Chair Ruth Davies AE and then Accreditation Board Chair Linda Nix AE. Broadening the scope of the Standards was already on the agenda.
“We knew we needed a broad range of experience to review the submissions,” said Kerry, who worked on the draft of the online submissions form and the call for expressions of interest to join the working party.
Kerry had been the facilitator of the second edition of the Standards and so contributed helpful background knowledge about the process and decisions made. It was a handy head start for the ISWP.
For Julie, joining the ISWP was a case of juggling responsibilities but also opportunities.
“At the time I was chair of the Accessibility Initiative Working Party (AIWP), and one of our objectives was to develop IPEd standards on editing for people with print disability. The revision of the Standards provided the ideal opportunity to do this.”
With her expertise, and input from other AIWP members, Julie ensured that accessibility was referenced in each section of the Standards, using appropriate examples and language.
“The third edition also had to reflect the needs of authors and readers by covering elements such as accessibility, authenticity and cultural safety. We took a great deal of care, and listened to advice from many experts, to build these elements into the revision.”
–Justine Dixon Cooper
In October 2021, Marja Stack AE, Justine Dixon Cooper and Sharon Lierse joined the ISWP. So too did Joely Taylor AE, Sue Pavasaris AE and Paula Wagemaker, all of whom contributed a great deal to the revision until May 2023.
“I was approached by another member of the Editors ANZ committee,” Marja explained. “As this would be the first review of the Standards since the IPEd branch in Aotearoa New Zealand was formed, I was interested in helping ensure the Standards represented editors in New Zealand.”
Marja, along with EdANZ colleagues, worked diligently to ensure that New Zealand editors saw themselves in the Standards.
“This meant making sure editing issues that New Zealand editors would come across were represented … as well as making sure that the Māori language and culture were held at the forefront of any changes alongside those of the First Nations peoples of Australia.”
Justine recalls that her interest was immediately piqued by the call for EOIs.
“I used to edit British Standards, although never on a topic so close to my heart. I was also keen to volunteer with IPEd and be part of its wonderful community, so the ISWP seemed like the ideal opportunity,” she said.
“I didn’t have a specific role but I took it on myself to be pernickety about modal verbs and long sentences! I enjoyed the occasional opportunity to take tricky passages away and recast them between meetings. It’s a fun (and slightly daunting) challenge to edit for other editors.”
For Sharon, it was a combination of a professional interest in the Standards and respect for those already part of the working party that encouraged her to get involved.
“I was impressed with their level of professionalism,” Sharon said of the editors she would work closely with for the next two and a half years.
In November 2021, Sharon became chair of the ISWP. It was a role that required plenty of organisation and coordination.
“The role of chair was to organise the agenda, run the meetings, arrange the budget, finalise the minutes, write reports to the Board, and correspond with IPEd members and committees and expert reviewers.”
It was a big task, made perhaps slightly bigger by a move overseas in September 2022. Sharon credits the collegiality of the ISWP with her decision to continue in the role despite living in Europe.
A more inclusive and representative Standards
From the very start of the review process, diversity, equity and inclusion were high on the working party’s priority list.
“We wanted this edition to be more inclusive and representative of the people it supports,” Justine said. “This goal led us to make substantial changes, based on both the original submissions we received and advice from the expert reviewers we later engaged.
“We knew that, to be effective, the Standards had to speak to all of IPEd’s members about the content they edit. For example, on the content front, we wanted to create a better balance between print and digital formats.
“The third edition also had to reflect the needs of authors and readers by covering elements such as accessibility, authenticity and cultural safety. We took a great deal of care, and listened to advice from many experts, to build these elements into the revision.”
Marja recalls the process of weaving the New Zealand and Māori perspective into the Standards started early.
“Before the review process started, I worked with other members of the EdANZ committee and Pania Tahau-Hodges, an expert Māori editor and publisher, to write the initial submission.
“The ISWP contacted Pania again to review the first draft with a Māori lens. She directed us on appropriate wording and points we should consider. She also approved the final draft.”
Reviewers also advised the ISWP on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander considerations in Australia, on accessibility and on the overarching themes of diversity and representation. These reviews were a key part of the process for the ISWP. They spoke to the care that the working party approached their task with.
“The reviewers, most of whom are IPEd members, brought a wide range of expertise and lived experience to the project,” Justine explained.
“Their feedback was invaluable, whether it was prompting us to reconsider individual words or to introduce more wholesale changes in our approach.”
But these reviews also required cautious balancing.
“We had to be incredibly careful to ensure that changes requested from one perspective wouldn’t be affected by another,” Kerry explained.
Navigating submissions and reviews
Throughout the review process, the ISWP received dozens of submissions and comments, and some critiques too. The level of engagement required them to develop a considered and meticulous system for working through the feedback, starting with the initial submissions and moving through to the reviewers’ comments.
“Each suggestion was discussed in detail. Sometimes we spent an entire meeting discussing one sentence, and other times we progressed much more quickly,” Sharon said.
“We had a balance of ISWP members with specialisations in different areas. There were many times when we carried over a detail until the next meeting. One person would research a particular point and come back the following meeting. Decisions were made via consensus.”
Next came feedback from IPEd’s committees, plus the Accreditation Board and the IPEd Board, and the working party’s responses to that feedback. And then the draft document was shared with IPEd members. Each round of review had to balance a range of perspectives and ensure that high standards were being upheld.
“The working party considered every piece of feedback we received. It was a detailed and thorough process,” Sharon explained.
“As well as the increased reference to accessibility and inclusion within the Standards, we have also made the Standards themselves more accessible. This included focusing on plain language with shorter sentences, expanding the glossary and offering the Standards in a choice of formats, including EPUB.”
–Julie Ganner AE
Such a deliberate and attentive process is also a time-consuming one. The time it took to complete the third edition was something that surprised the working party. While they had initially expected the process to take just over a year, in the end it was three years – “a marathon”, Sharon said.
Time was a unanimous challenge for the ISWP with weekly meetings often tricky to navigate with various time zones at play.
“I spent most of 2022 living in the UK and was unable to participate in meetings due to the time difference,” Julie said. “However, I kept track of the meeting minutes and could still contribute to questions on accessibility when needed. The wonders of modern technology!”
Key to managing the time challenge was the way the ISWP worked together.
“We had such a supportive group that we really shared the load as best we could,” Justine said. “If anyone needed to step back for a week or two, everyone else would step forward without hesitation.”
Leaving a legacy
Working at the coalface of an endeavour like this can sometimes overshadow the great strides made – the important work swallowed up with the march of time.
But that’s not the case here. The team is quick to list the significant changes, the updates and developments they are most proud of.
“As well as the increased reference to accessibility and inclusion within the Standards, we have also made the Standards themselves more accessible,” Julie said. “This included focusing on plain language with shorter sentences, expanding the glossary and offering the Standards in a choice of formats, including EPUB.”
The variety of formats ensured the Standards were accessible to as many people as possible. Linda Nix played a vital role in the design and formatting of the Standards, creating various PDF and Word document formats alongside the EPUB.
“From my perspective representing EdANZ, the most significant change is that the Standards is also for editors in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Marja said. “The increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility, and the inclusion of AI, are also significant changes.”
“Being tested on my thoughts has made my decision-making more robust in my own work. It was also a privilege to work with and learn from the Māori cultural experts. I am now even more aware of the cultural sensitivities of editing te reo Māori content. And I am proud to have helped bring this to the forefront in the Standards.”
–Marja Stack AE
Several weeks after the launch of the third edition, the members of the ISWP use words like “legacy”, “rewarding” and “teamwork” to describe not only their experience but also the result of their years of work.
“The process was most rewarding. I learned much more than what was in the Standards, and this has positively impacted how I approach my own work – for instance, the use of modifiers and the importance of fonts and colours for clarity,” Sharon said.
“I’m now teaching a postgraduate course on editing and proofreading, and I’m finding the Standards to be a godsend,” Julie said. “It is a wonderful, robust framework from which to explain the varied and nuanced work that editors do. I’m proud to have been able to contribute to it in some small way.”
“It was a pleasure and a privilege to work with other professional editors so closely. As a freelance editor, I don’t often get that opportunity,” Marja said.
“Being tested on my thoughts has made my decision-making more robust in my own work. It was also a privilege to work with and learn from the Māori cultural experts. I am now even more aware of the cultural sensitivities of editing te reo Māori content. And I am proud to have helped bring this to the forefront in the Standards.”
“I agree wholeheartedly with the others’ statements: especially being emboldened to edit more carefully for diversity, equity and inclusion, gently challenging the authors I work with to think more broadly and take greater care with their language,” Kerry said.
“The collegiality of working with a team of highly skilled editors on such an important document was a joy, even amid the hard slog of such a long process. To quote from a message from IPEd Patron Roly Sussex after the launch, ‘Securing consensus for the Standards was a wonderful example of what people of like commitment (though not necessarily of the same views at the outset) can achieve by discussion and negotiation. It’s a great achievement.’”
“I’ve been reminded of the incredible skill and dexterity of professional editors. We do so much more than dot Is and cross Ts,” Justine said. “That’s not to say we won’t feel a little quiver of excitement when we catch an awkward typo. But our role brings far more responsibility and opportunity as we respond to the evolving language of our society.
“We can help open up ‘the conversation’, and we can bring more people into that conversation, if we focus on the fundamentals of access and representation – which the third edition prompts us to do. We can be champions for diversity, equity and inclusion and, as Roly said when he launched the Standards, what a banner to march under.”
The IPEd Standards Working Party members were:
- Sharon Lierse, chair
- Joely Taylor AE, deputy chair
- Kerry Davies AE
- Ruth Davies AE
- Justine Dixon Cooper
- Julie Ganner AE
- Linda Nix AE
- Sue Pavasaris AE
- Marja Stack AE
- Paula Wagemaker