Abstracts: Consolidation
Abstracts: Transition | Abstracts: Consolidation | Abstracts: Collaboration
Conference program
Friday, 14 October 2005
Keynote address: Consolidating CASE: How does it work and why is it obsolete?
Janet Mackenzie
For decades Australian editors have been talking about forming a national organisation to represent their interests, but progress has been glacial. In 1998 the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE) was established as an informal arrangement to enable the societies to work together. Since then CASE has successfully broadened the profession?s concept of itself and enabled it to undertake some projects on a national scale. The membership is now poised to transform CASE into a formal national association, the Institute of Professional Editors.
Janet will discuss the history, structure and operation of CASE as it reaches this turning point, describing its methods and its achievements so far. CASE has made skilful use of its meagre resources and it has established an effective process for consulting the membership in order to make decisions. Janet will describe this process and explain where the proposed accreditation scheme fits into the overall plan. She will go on to sketch possibilities for the nascent national organisation the process by which it might be set up and the tasks it might undertake. This talk will tackle the hard questions: Is CASE a clique? Does it have too much power? Where is the money coming from? Is this the start of the Inter-Galactic Federation of Editors?
Janet Mackenzie edited her first book in 1969 and has been at it ever since, working on a wide range of scholarly, educational and general books and business publications. She has a BA (Hons) in English Language and trained at Melbourne University Press. In 1971 she helped to establish the Victorian Society of Editors and is now an honorary life member. She has taught editing at every level from primary school to postgraduate master classes. As a member of the Council of Australian Societies of Editors and convenor of its accreditation working group, she has a national perspective on professional issues. She has recently published The Editor?s Companion, an indispensible guide for editing and related professions.
Workshop: Accreditation
Karen Disney (SA), Louise Forster (ACT), Ed Highley (IPEd), Shelley Kenigsberg (NSW), Helen Bethune Moore (Vic.) and Alison Savage (Tas.)
Chair: Robin Bennett (Qld)
After an introduction by its Chair, Robin Bennett, the Accreditation Board will present a hypothetical submission for accreditation, edited in various ways. These will include the document having been:
- edited and annotated properly onscreen, using track changes and author comments/queries, with a proper accompanying style sheet
- inadequately edited onscreen, with inadequate comments and an inadequate style sheet
- properly marked up on hard copy, annotated, and accompanied by a proper style sheet
- inadequately marked up on hard copy, without making proper use of a style sheet, or providing author comments/queries.
We will discuss the merits of testimonials, the requirements for editorial reviews, and analyse a work in progress. We will also discuss whether or not client testimonials should be required, how extensive a submission needs to be, and what measures the Accreditation Board should be considering to ensure consistency and transparency.
We?re hoping that the presentation will generate many questions from the floor. We will also advocate that each society holds a workshop to discuss accreditation early in 2006.
Robin Bennett, Chair and Qld delegate Robin is the current President of the Society of Editors (Qld) Inc. and the current IPEd (CASE) delegate for Queensland; she also convened the first national editors conference held in Brisbane in 2003. She is an in-house editor with TAFE Queensland.
Karen Disney, SA delegate Karen is a founding member and past president of the SA Society of Editors. A fourth generation wordsmith, she has some 30 years? editing and communications experience, and is Asia Pacific Marketing Communications lead for engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root.
Louise Forster, ACT delegate Louise has worked as an editor for more than 20 years and has operated her own editing business, WordsWorth Writing, for the past 15 years. Louise was president of the Canberra Society of Editors from 1998 to 2000 and was one of the convenors of the joint indexers/editors conference in Canberra in 2000.
Ed Highley, the IPEd (CASE) delegate Ed is membership secretary of the Canberra Society of Editors and has in the past been its president, vice president, editor and production editor of its newsletter, and IPEd (CASE) delegate. He also looks after the IPEd (CASE) website and is a member of the editorial board of The Fine Print ezine. He has been writing and editing scientific, technical and other texts for many years, as a freelance and working in research institutes and publishing houses.
Shelley Kenigsberg, NSW delegate Shelley has worked in publishing for 21 years as editor, publisher and trainer. She coordinates the Macleay College, Sydney Booking Editing and Publishing Diploma and works freelance fiction and non-fiction editing. Shelley was president of the NSW Society of Editors (200003) and vice president (200405) and is a member of the editorial board of The Fine Print ezine.
Helen Bethune Moore, Vic. delegate Helen is a freelance writer and editor. Her experience over the past 20 years has ranged from editing parliamentary documents to writing early literacy and consulting on the cross-cultural versioning of education texts. She has been on the Society of Editors (Victoria) committee for almost ten years, and was a founding member of the Tasmanian Society of Editors.
Alison Savage, Tas. delegate Alison is a past treasurer of the Tasmanian Society of Editors. She works as a teacher (trained in English and Linguistics) as well as freelance editor for Allen & Unwin in Sydney, adult education, local businesses and government organisations. Alison is a relative newcomer to the industry, freelancing since 2003.
Presentation: The training dilemma
Kate Indigo, Katya Johanson and Rosemary Noble
We often hear that the system of one-on-one training that characterises traditional in-house training is the best educational approach for the trainee editor. However, the economic conditions that shape publishing companies, universities and other teaching institutions make it a difficult system to maintain and to replicate. We three speakers represent university and TAFE teachers, a managing editor, editors and students. From these perspectives, we discuss the contradictions that exist between the nature of editing and the imperatives that drive teaching and learning, and ways to address these contradictions.
Kate Indigo has a Graduate Certificate in Writing, Editing, and Publishing from the University of Queensland, and conducted linguistic fieldwork and worked as a research assistant before becoming an editor. She has freelanced for clients in the government and private sectors, and worked in the publishing units of Queensland Government departments. Since June 2004, she has worked for Australian Academic Press, an independent academic publisher with a speciality in psychology and the behavioural sciences.
Katya Johanson is the coordinator of the Professional Writing and Editing program at Deakin University. She has previously worked as an editor at Addison-Wesley, Melbourne University and Deakin University, as well as in other publishing roles at Cambridge University Press and Sybylla Feminist Press.
Rosemary Noble has worked as an editor for the past 25 years, most recently at Deakin University. She is currently studying for a Graduate Certificate in Editing at Macquarie University.
Workshop: Setting up a freelance office: or Zen and the art of technology setup and maintenance
Lan Wang
Are you thinking of starting out as a freelancer but don?t know what technology you need? Have you been a freelancer for years but feel that your office technology is outdated?
This workshop looks at the issues you should consider if you are about to set up a freelance home office or need to upgrade one. What sort of computer is right for you? What about broadband Internet access? Should you buy a fax? What pitfalls lie ahead of you?
This session will build in plenty of time throughout for your real-life questions and dilemmas and hopefully you will walk away feeling a little more confident about asking the right questions from your local technology providers.
Lan Wang has been interested in learning about technology and all that it can do for you ever since she bought her first computer in 1984. Imagine her delight when she discovered that she could both indulge this passion and earn a living by becoming a freelance editor, typesetter and website and database developer. She has a library of computer magazines and books that would rival anyone?s National Geographic collection, and delights in applying the information from them to her daily work. She claims not to be a nerd, but this has yet to be proved.
Presentation: Does science editing improve accuracy and clarity?
Philippa Middleton and Janet Salisbury
Editors assume that their work adds value to the document that they edit, but how do we know if this is really true? In 2000, two medical writers and editors, Liz Wager (UK) and Philippa Middleton (Australia) set out to find the answer.
Most articles in biomedical journals undergo some form of scientific editing between acceptance and publication. The intensity and type of editing vary between journals, but the process usually includes the following tasks: applying house style; checking for consistency, clarity and completeness; and correcting grammatical errors. This editing is intended to improve the accuracy and clarity of the journal articles.
Using the same methods of systematic literature review applied to other areas of biomedical research, Liz and Philippa identified and reviewed all the relevant studies that had been published on the effect of technical editing on reports in biomedical journals.
Their review revealed that, overall, considering the time and resources devoted to editing, remarkably little is known about its effects. However, the review identified some studies of the outcomes of technical editing against a number of scores (such as reader scoring systems, Flesch reading ease, Gunning Fog scores and reference accuracy), and the results showed improvements in readability and quality of articles.
These results suggest that further targeted research across all types of editing would help to provide an evidence-based assessment of the value of editing. This information could be used both as a basis for quality improvement and for promotion of the profession.
Philippa Middleton is Research Manager at ASERNIP-S, which is the research arm of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. She is also active in the Cochrane Collaboration (an international organisation that produces and maintains reviews of the scientific evidence for health care treatments). In particular, she helps Australian reviewers prepare reviews for the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group and is an editor with the Methodology Group and Skin Group.
As a member of the Cochrane Quality Group and Handbook Advisory Group, Philippa is involved in activities to help improve the scientific and technical quality of health care publications. She has postgraduate qualifications in science, information management and public health.
Janet Salisbury has a PhD in experimental oncology and worked in cancer research from 1976 to 1989. She is a member of the Board of Editors of the Life Sciences (USA) as a certified editor in the life sciences (ELS). In 1990, Janet set up her own science consulting, writing and editing business (later named Biotext). Since that time, she has researched, written and edited numerous reports, public discussion papers, summaries, factsheets, proceedings and technical papers on issues relating to health, agriculture and the environment. Biotext now employs six in-house personnel and a number of contractors.
Janet regularly updates her skills through membership of various professional organisations and by regularly attending training workshops and meetings in Australia and overseas. She was a founder member of the Canberra Society of Editors and has held a number of committee positions over the years. In 200304, she was the ACT representative on the CASE Accreditation Working Group.
Panel: The student perspective
Jaclyn Crupi, Michael Curry, Carlie Jennings, Deb Kuyper and Kate Smith
Chair: Bryony Cosgrove
Following on from the presentation ?The training dilemma: what happens between graduation and accreditation?, we invited a panel of current and recent graduates of university and TAFE courses on editing to share their views on the relevance of their training to their current work experience. The panel is chaired by RMIT lecturer Bryony Cosgrove and the panel consists of students from editing and publishing courses at the University of Melbourne, RMIT, Deakin University, Monash University and Holmesglen TAFE.
Bryony Cosgrove has over 25 years? experience in the publishing industry as an editor and publisher of a wide range of books. She has also lectured in publishing and writing courses at universities, TAFE colleges and writers? centres around Australia. She is currently lecturing in Publishing Studies at RMIT. After working in senior in-house positions at Penguin, Angus and Robertson and other publishers, she established Bryony Cosgrove Editorial Services in 1997. She is also a Beatrice Davis Fellow and a winner of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Barbara Ramsden Award (the only award given to a book?s editor).
Jaclyn Crupi graduated from RMIT?s Graduate Diploma in Publishing and Editing two years ago and is now the Managing Editor at Funtastic.
Michael Curry is working as a writer and assistant for Australian Automotive Aftermarket Magazine while he completes a Diploma of Arts - Professional Writing and Editing at Holmesglen TAFE.
Carlie Jennings is working as an editorial assistant at Dorling Kindersley after graduating last year form the University of Melbourne?s Master of Arts in Editing and Communications.
Deb Kuyper has completed a Graduate Diploma in Publishing and Editing at Monash and is currently working as a merchandiser at Penguin while she completes her masters studies.
Kate Smith is currently undertaking an undergraduate professional writing course at Deakin University. She is co-editor of the student publication Verandah Literary Journal.
Panel: Does copyediting really matter?
Kerryn Burgess, Nick Hudson, Michael Lewis and Valerie Rice
Chair: Robert Moore
The popularity of Eats Shoots and Leaves and Death Sentence suggests that there are many consumers of the written word who care passionately about ?literacy standards?, but the flaws in those same books show that passion and accuracy do not always travel in company. Anecdotal evidence is abundant that editorial standards are falling, or at least changing. Articles in daily newspapers and books from reputable publishers are not only replete with typographical errors; we also see countless factual errors, problematic choices in grammar and lexis, and stylistic infelicities. Some of these are attributable to human error under increasing pressure from deadlines; some are attributable to reduced editorial budgets. But even if deadlines were to be relaxed and budgets increased, would it make any difference? Many of today?s writers and readers and editors were taught formal English grammar either not at all, or by people who were themselves taught poorly. Can today?s copyeditors accurately identify and reliably correct grammatical errors? Can readers tell the difference? Can a text?s clarity, and its appropriateness for its audience, be enhanced without a basis of grammatical knowledge? Or is the role of the copyeditor inevitably changing to one of fact-checking?
Kerryn Burgess has a BA in journalism from RMIT, and she credits the former head of that course, Sally White, with providing her rigorous initial grammar education. On graduating, she worked as a media monitor in Melbourne and Toronto, and found that transcribing radio interviews is a good way to practise punctuating. Kerryn completed the RMIT Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing in 2001, then worked for three years as a managing editor for Lonely Planet, where she was responsible for training new editors. She is now a commissioning editor for Lonely Planet and reads grammar books for fun.
Nick Hudson is the publisher at Hudson Publishing and author of Modern Australian Usage (OUP). He was founding Managing Director of Heinemann Educational Australia, a firm he ran for 28 years. He is a life member of both the Society of Editors (Victoria) and the Publishers Association.
Michael Lewis is a freelance writer and editor, and a trainer in business and technical writing and editing. He also works part-time in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, where he lectures and tutors in theoretical linguistics and in courses on communication skills.
Robert Moore is a specialist mathematics editor with Oxford University Press, after more than 20 years of writing, editing and university lecturing. He has engaged with computer technology since the late 1970s and has edited on-screen since the early 1990s.
Valerie Rice trained as a bilingual secretary, and subsequently retrained as a teacher of shorthand and typing. After a career break to bring up three sons, she ran her own training centre and secretarial services bureau before returning to full-time teaching, specialising in office skills, business studies and IT. Teaching and examining in these subjects was an ideal grounding for proofreading and copyediting, to which she turned when she took early retirement. Valerie has now been freelance for 10 years, and joined the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) in 1995, becoming a committee member in 1999. She took over as Treasurer in February 2001, and oversaw the incorporation of the Society in 2003, streamlining the administration at the same time.
Workshop: Science 101 for editors
David Meagher
Most editors will have to grapple with scientific or technical matter at some stage in their careers, no matter what their field of work. This intensive workshop is designed for editors without a science background, but science editors might also find it useful for consolidating their knowledge. It will arm them with the information they need to tackle basic scientific and technical matter with confidence. Topics covered will include scientific standards and style, common errors, and dealing with symbols, tables, graphs and mathematics.
David Meagher is a freelance science editor and writer specialising in life sciences, physics and mathematics. He teaches science editing and electronic publishing to postgraduate diploma students at RMIT University. David also undertakes research in bryology at the University of Melbourne, where he is a fellow in the School of Botany.
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