#copy desk

[memphisbarbecue]

-- 30 --

[journalismstudentproblems]

You've got your pages laid out, you've proofed all the stories, it's almost time to send the paper to the printer!

And the cops start raiding a local neighborhood on a search warrant.

[nprbooks]

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.

On this day in 1947, novelist and screenwriter Raymond Chandler sent this message to his copy editor at the Atlantic Monthly.

[thehaleyplanet]

First night working the copy desk. Exciting stuff.

[sashajol]

Booklist of a Copy Editor

Check out what the Times magazine copy editor is reading

[boston]

GLOBE INSIDERS | TO GRAMMAR'S HOUSE

Clanging off the rim

- Should headline writers give in to the temptation of terms like "Linsanity"? Or should they stick with words that actually exist?

[cheekyrobots]

The joys of The New York Times copy desk

The Times' copy desk writes the best headlines in the world. Example: A profile of the novelist Nicholson Baker in today's Magazine. Here's the headline:

The Mad Scientist of Smut The novelist Nicholson Baker lives a quiet life in Maine. But boy, does his mind wander.

Perfect! Witty and right on target, considering that several of Baker's novels are almost pornographic in nature. And here is the lead paragraph:

Nicholson Baker does not look like a dirty-book writer. His color is good. His gaze is direct, with none of the sidelong furtiveness of the compulsive masturbator. He wears round, owlish glasses , and in early book-jacket photographs, when his beard was darker and more closely trimmed than it is now, he reminds you of one of those earnest Russian intellectuals of the 19th century. Nowadays, with the beard grown out and nearly white, he could easily get seasonal work as a shopping-mall Santa. 

Also wonderful. I wish I could write like that.

[esteblogmudouse-blog]

Deixaram meu pronome gaudério, turururu.