Sonia Jaffe Robbins, Editing Workshop, G54.1123

1. Home
   
2. Syllabus
   
3. Weekly course topics
   
4. Detailed weekly course topics & assignments
   
5. Skills
   • Approaches to editing
     
     • Editorial marks
       
     • Recipe for copy editing
       
     • "Top 10 Reasons Why Being a Copy Editor Is Cool!"
       
     • Class style manual.
       
     • Editing procedures
       
   • Grammar
     
     • About Grammar
     • "Like" versus "as"
       
   • Spelling and punctuation
     
     • About Spelling
     • mnemonics
       
     • "'I' Before 'E'"
       
     • Is it one word? two words? hyphenated?
       
     • About Punctuation
       
     • Hyphens
       
     • "Why not just use the spell checker?"
   • Word use and abuse
     
     • About Word Use and Abuse
       
     • Euphemisms
       
     • Wordiness & clichés
       
     • Synonyms for "said"
       
     • "Like" versus "such as"
       
   • Headlines
     
     • U.S. newspaper headlines in historical perspective
       
   • Layout
     
     • Writing captions
   • Publication style
     
     • Publication style
       
     • State abbreviations
   • Electronic resources

1. Skills
• Approaches to editing
  • "In search of the perfect copy editor: 10 Copy Editor Traits That Guarantee You Success," by Anne Glover
  • "What Exactly Is a Copyeditor?" by Bill Walsh, aka the Crusty Old Slot Man
  • Nancy Hanger, of Windhaven Press,, offers a good description of what copy editors do, weighted toward the tasks of book copy editors.
  • AP's guidelines for Internet use
  • "Gullibility" quiz at the Museum of Hoaxes.=
  • Snopes.com for checking urban legends seen on the Internet.
  • Netiquette quiz
• Grammar
  • Diagramming
  • "A Grammatically Correct 239-Word Sentence"
• Spelling and punctuation
  
• Word use and abuse
  
  • Banished Words, from Lake Superior State University
  • The American Dialect Society, chooses Words of the Year
  • Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year 2004
  • Computer Knowledge Acronyms
  • Web Economy Bullshit Generator
• Headlines
  • John Schlander's headlines tips
  • Joel Pisetzner's headline hints
  • More headline hints from Wayne Countryman
• Numbers
  • Robert Nile's Stats Lesson
  • "Five Common, Embarrassing Mistakes Journalists Make with Numbers,"
  • "Teaching and training journalists in the use of numbers," from the Poynter Institute
  • "Two experts caution journalists to look behind the numbers and data," by John Sweeney
  • The Investigative Reporters and Editors' math test for journalists.
• Fact-checking
  • ACES Reference list
  • CIA 2002 World Factbook
  • CyberTimes Navigator
  • Dead People Server
  • Freeality Internet Search
  • The International Trademark Association
  • The Internet Movie Data Base
  • Internet Public Library
  • Local Time Around the World
  • New York City neighborhoods
  • U.S. Postal Service Zip Codes
  • U.S. telephone area codes
  • International dialing codes
  • Fone Finder
  • Linc Madison's Telephone Area Codes & Splits
  • World Bank Atlas
  • Worldwide Holidays and Festivals
2. Job hunting
• Journalism Jobs
• The Poynter Institute's job links
• Copyeditor newsletter's job listings
• National Diversity Journalism Job Bank
• "How papers can find and retain copy editors," by Hank Glamann, from The American Editor, February 2000.
• ACES
• Editor & Publisher
• Freelance Success
• The Jobs Page
• "How papers can find and retain copy editors," by Hank Glamann
• JournalismJobs.com
• MediaBistro
• National Writers Union
• News Jobs Network
3. Word Fun and Other Educational Games
• Bookworm
• A Game a Day
• Game Room
• Geographical Trivia
• Interactive Word Games
• Logophilia: The Word Lover's Web Site
• Middle East map quiz
• National Novel Writing Month
• The Simplified Spelling Society
• Text Twist
• Web Economy Bullshit Generator
• Word Game of the Day
4. Internet
• What is it?
  • The short answer
  • The long, technical answer
• How did it get that way?
  • A timeline
  • A timeline with social and political context
• The Virtual Museum of Computing
• The New Hacker's Dictionary, aka the Jargon file
• Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, including assorted history, resources, and information

Last revision: January 14, 2005