Book Review for the Editor in You #2 - The Copyeditor's Handbook
The second book I have reviewed is The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, with Exercises and Answer Keys, a fantastic conglomeration of tips and useful information for the publishing world.
The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, with Exercises and Answer Keys by Amy Einsohn (2011); University of California Press
This handbook is an extensive information resource for anyone interested in editing; it covers all types of editing—proofreading, copyediting, and substantive editing—as well as the different levels of editing; terminology; an abundance of book publishing techniques and principals; chapters on editing graphs, art, tables, design; typecoding; print and online resources; and discusses editing by Word processor versus the dreaded hard copy. This book is mainly geared towards full-time copyeditors inclined to book publishing, or business professionals working with technical copy, but can also be applied to news copyeditors or magazine writers needing those extra pint-sized tricks of the trade (“stare at a list of hard words,” correctly “folderize” your email, and organize all those Word documents with folders and more folders).
Included are three main sections—Copyediting, Editorial Style, and Language Editing. Also supplied are: handy glossaries of copyediting terms and grammar terms, and special resources such as style sheets, numerous examples from across different platforms, and a check list for editorial preferences. And the crown jewel that makes this book stand out—exercises after each chapter with answer keys in the back (don’t peek). It is not just a book to read; it is one to read, practice, take notes from, practically apply, and read again. And then keep it at your desk when you're an editor.
Whereas Strunk and White covered the what of basic rules of grammar and editing conventions, Amy Einsohn covers the how and why. She gives us the explanations we’ve been looking for; almost any grammar or style rule is discussed in detail and we find whether it is an in issue of individual publisher style or of grammatical correctness. She has even comprised a subsection titled “What Copyeditors Do” in which she goes into detail about job titles and descriptions, what to expect, and what has recently changed for copyeditors regarding workflow and careers.
The Copyeditor’s Handbook is carefully written for the minds of young readers starting out for the first time in editing. You don’t need to be a full-time copyeditor, or even be looking for that kind of job. It is helpful for anyone searching for general publishing jobs because it goes in depth about the practices of book publishing. The only thing this book does not see to light is the art of dealing with people in publishing—the higher-ups, the publishers, the authors, etc. Although there are snippets here and there about what an author might do, and how to address queries in writing, Einsohn offers no insight on freelancing, what kinds of things you might hear people say, how to respond, or how the atmosphere of the publishing house might feel like to an in-house copyeditor.
Rather than just a list of grammar rules, The Copyeditor’s Handbook is more of a theoretical guide for editors to learn to “develop a sixth sense about how much effort, and what kind of effort, to put into each project.” Einsohn guides would-be editors to use editorial judgment and to “make an informed decision about when to apply, adapt, or ignore various conventions and rules.”
Learn More: Amazon | Goodreads
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