Blog archive » 2010 » February

Recommended: Sociology editor

Anyone writing in English as a foreign language is by definition at a disadvantage in judging the quality of an English-language editing site by the primary criteria we use to make judgements on the internet – namely, grammar and punctuation. The owners of some sites exploit this market asymmetry to pass off substandard goods at […]

MS Word Wildcard Bug: Character Transposition

When track changes is enabled, MS Word transposes characters when using the wildcard string (a.k.a. regular expression): Find \(([0-9]{4})\) Replace with . \1. The aim of the string is to transform, e.g. Hart, Keith (1973) to Hart, Keith. 1973. But when track changes is on it produces Hart, Keith1973.. The only way to work around […]

MS Word Caps Toggle

In MS Word, shift+F3 toggles highlighted text between ALL CAPS, no caps, and Headline Style. Useful for zooming through e.g. reference lists.

“It looks like a warning…”

This is the first in a series of reviews of other academic copyediting sites, both fair and foul. And we start with foul. Avoid this site: The Academic Editor. The eye, dragging itself through a turgid morass of stock photography – in which grinning graduates, nubile and successful, doff their mortarboards to the misty mountains […]

Hermeneutics of copyediting

Copy-Editing Corner observes that a core skill for a copyeditor is that she should be able to quickly grasp the total meaning of the piece being edited. “If there is to be any editing beyond simple punctuation and grammar fixes,” the blog observes, “the copy editor has to grasp what is happening in the article.” […]