Learn invaluable magazine copy editing and polishing skills

Come and see me on Thursday 25th for the Chang School Open House. It's an opportunity to talk face-to-face about the courses that are available to you during the fall term (and in other terms). It's in the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre, 245 Church Street, Toronto, ON.

A couple of the complementary courses you may want to enquire about are

• CDJN 122 — Advanced Magazine Editing  (7 weeks) It used to be called Substantive Editing and it is all about the effective editing of individual magazine articles in digital or print formats. It is designed to help writers grab readers' attention at the start and keep them reading to the end. The instructor is Donna Paris. Areas covered include assigning or acquiring manuscripts; tailoring content for specific readerships; coaching writers according to their individual strengths and weaknesses; editing for completeness and clarity; effective cutting and silken transitions; and use of imagery, anecdote, and a variety of voices and rhythms to make an article sing. A must for anyone planning to edit longer manuscripts - and a very useful course for anyone planning to write them. The course starts Thursday, 15 September. 

• CDJN 119 — Magazine Copy Editing (13 weeks) Bernadette Kuncevicius is one of the most experienced and knowledgeable editors in the business; she has earned her reputation for teaching people how to buff up someone else's prose (and, for that matter, your own) in print or web-based magazine editorial copy to ensure a high degree of clarity, consistency, and accuracy, as well as precise and appropriate use of language. After a magazine article has been substantively edited (see above), the copy editor attends to the finer details - checking grammar, punctuation, spelling, consistency of style, logic, and usage - and shepherds the article through the proofreading and production process. These "polishing" skills will be covered in this course, along with commonly used reference works, Canadian spelling, proofreader's marks, copy editing on computers, copy fitting, line editing, bias-free language, working with designed pages, and writing display copy. One lesson will be devoted to fact-checking.  The course starts Wednesday, 14 September.

Enrol now; don't delay.

For a complete list of the courses in the Magazine and Web Publishing program go to ryerson.ca/ce/magazine. 

Conference call: editors of the world, unite

 

Those among you who are grammar and usage mavens (you know who you are) may be interested in the forthcoming Editing Goes Global, an international conference of editors hosted by the Editors' Association of Canada and the Professional Writers Association of Canada June 12 - 14 in Toronto at the Metro Convention Centre.

Keynote speakers will be Carol Fisher Saller, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style's online Q&A and the author of The Subversive Copy Editor and Katherine Barber, the former editor-in-chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and author of Only in Canada You Say: A Treasury of Canadian Language and Six Words You Never Knew Had Something To Do With Pigs. Other presenters from the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and of course Canada. 

Editors' Association of Canada allies with American Copy Editors Society

The Editors' Association of Canada (EAC) has formed an international alliance with The American Copy Editors Society (ACES) to provide each other's training and professional development programs at a discounted rate, including the forthcoming EAC annual conference in Toronto June 6 - 8.

"EAC is excited to expand our members' networking and professional development opportunities in partnering with ACES," said Carolyn L Burke, executive director of EAC. EAC promotes professional editing as key in producing effective communication and helps maintain high editing and publishing standards in Canada, with 1,500 members working in the corporate, technical, government, non-profit and publishing sectors. "Learning side-by-side with ACES members online and in person will advance career opportunities for members of both organizations."

EAC was founded in 1979 and has about 1,500 members; ACES was founded in 1997 and has a membership of approximately 1,000. ACES is offering one of its editing bootcamps in Montreal on August 5. Like EAC, it has regional chapters and an annual national conference -- the next one being in March 2015 in Pittsburgh. Similar to the arrangement with EAC, ACES has made alliances with the Society for News Design and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.