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Settling into the window seat aboard the Southwest Airlines flight to Dallas, a copy of Cracking The Bible Code, a book postulating the theory that a code exists within the Old Testament that pertains to current events, rested in my lap. In the middle of a discussion on modern-day scholars who are trying to calculate the mathematical odds that these ancient writings could actually be describing worldwide events, there was a nondescript passage about the Jews’ devotion to the sacred Torah and the role the Jewish scribes played—and do so even today—in preserving the integrity of God’s word. It’s easy to imagine these devoted men bending over their tables as they laboriously copied by hand all of the scriptures contained in these ancient writings. Working for many years, from one generation to the next, they ensured that the transcribed text was copied letter by letter, without any deviation whatsoever, on parchment. If an error was made, the scribe started over. Reading about this practice made me realize that copyeditors today play a somewhat similar role: to preserve the integrity of written text. Working closely with the writer, a copyeditor has the advantage of having the ability to gently nudge him or her in the right direction when a glaring error jumps out from the page. An alert copyeditor would have caught the error in the first paragraph of this article. I settled into the window seat of the airplane, not the book. Good copyeditors develop a good eye for detail over time. But along with the skills required to make sure subjects agree with their verbs and there are no dangling participles, there is also the ability to be tactful when pointing out the error of a writer’s ways. I remember when I first began editing copy for a newspaper that the night editor explained why wages are garnisheed from a check, not garnished, as so many writers tend to say. "You garnish a plate with parsley; you garnishee someone’s wages," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. Some errors are easy to spot: "alright" is not generally accepted as a word and should be spelled correctly as "all right." And yet, I see it often in a variety of writings, including the transcription of a national TV news magazine’s report on the bottom of the television screen. One of the burdens of being a copyeditor/proofreader is that I can’t read anything without editing it. Years ago, I would frequently get notes from some of my children’s teachers full of errors. I always resisted the temptation to correct the errors with a red pencil and send the note back. The proliferation of computers in recent years has been accompanied by the increased use of built-in grammar and spell check tools. I try not to depend on these devices too much because machines will never replace the human eye. But even if I don’t like to resort to using computer tools, I do depend very much on various other sources, such as The Gregg Reference Manual (an indispensable reference book that is easy to use and very thorough). Along with the most recent edition of the dictionary (Webster’s is my favorite but there are many to choose from), the Gregg manual can be a lifesaver when trying to figure out when to use "who" instead of "whom" and whether or not a subject agrees with a verb. No matter how fast and sophisticated computers become, there will always be a need for the human touch. A confident writer shouldn’t look upon a copyeditor as a threat. Rather, a good copyeditor can assure that a passage of written material comes across as clear and concise as it should. By Bobbie Hall,
copy editor
for American Book Publishing. © 2005 American Book Publishing™ *All other trademarks used by permission. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy and Trademark Use Policy.
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