Editing "fun facts" about shark reproduction today. Theme song!

Strange week: 1) Hired to vet content and 10% of refs turn out to be hallucinated. 2) Perusing copyeditor jobs for potential clients, and 100% are seeking a copyeditor to train their AI. Same job at base; different endpoint.

TFW it takes you a couple of hours to access MS Office because your org changed the account logins and it took that long to figure out and follow the process to re-set-up 2fa. 🤨 At least they're paying the subscription!

Diacritics in references but not in citations—does anyone know the history of why this is common style? I suspect it's about not having enough ö, æ, or ñ in the printer's cases to put them in every citation, back in the day. But today the inconsistency makes the find function not work.

Everyone's talking again about MS craping your files and email to train its AI. Installed versions too, not just Office cloud. The rights they take are nested under "connected experiences" and you can turn that off in the privacy settings (if you trust that). eiw365.com/stop-word-fr...

Conscious Style Guide is on Bluesky! What to expect: posts that help you think critically about language and design as tools for equity and self-expression. Check out the whole family of resources: Book | Website | Community | Newsletter By @karenyin.bsky.social 🌷

In case you're wondering how reliable the MS Word "similarity check" is in its "Editor" function: it just found 10 similarities to online content in a file that is just website text collated into 46 pages. ALT: It should have flagged almost every line as existing online verbatim, but did not.

🎙️ Running an Editorial Agency—a live panel with four agency owners sharing their different models. Thinking about starting an agency? Or just curious how they work? This one's for you. Tues., Oct. 28 | 1:45 pm ET Register: zurl.co/MJlCO #AmEditing #FreelanceEditing #SmallBusiness

Should this be termed GABA gender assigned by airline) or GABGA (gender assigned by gate attendant)? File under "more impotent noise as their republic crumbles"

#EditorsPreventThis Workers spend ~2 hr/incident trying to make useful sense of AI crap ("slop") they're given. It leaves them annoyed & confused; resentful of the wasted time & thinking colleagues who generated it incompetent (Harvard Business Review). gizmodo.com/workslop-ai-... HT @Geoff Hart

I'm coming over to borrow your scissors – to open these scissors

Even the nest LLMs ("AI") are making up as much as 20% of their answers, so beware of 1–9. But #10 they're pretty good at! Just use a "compare docs" for a quick check for shenanigans.

I've been reading through this excellent resource, adding readings to all my editing courses. Don't let the "accessibility" tag make you think this isn't for all readers. It is! A great guide to clear and effective communication (aka "plain language"). accessible.canada.ca/creating-acc...

Fast, cheap work often sacrifices quality, especially in writing and editing. If quality matters, this edition of The Writing Resource explains why trying to have it all is a trap for clients and professionals. www.righttouchediting.com/20...

Book publishing—where almost 85% of the workers do not identify as "male" and pay has about equalized overall. Results of the 2024 Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey publishers.ca/2024-salary-...

Deloitte is refunding the final payment due to "substandard work," but still says the AI errors and fabrications "in no way impact or affect the substantive content, findings and recommendations in the report". An editor could have caught this for them! www.financialexpress.com/world-news/d...

#Researchers everywhere, including my #authors around the world, here is an article about how to determine whether a #journal is #predatory and is one that you do not want to submit your articles to. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Hat tip to Ivan Oransky: tinyurl.com/4z9btkrd

On-demand training (prerecorded)

Connecting the quotes in your writing to WHICH of the given references each is from is what makes a citation. Just listing them isn't enough. scieditor.ca/2024/09/chec...

brb asking my publisher for an edition of Because Internet that makes the dialup screech as you open it, like a novelty birthday card, and gradually heats up the longer you read it

Got AI? Better get a human editor too. @madamgrammar.bsky.social explains why: www.poynter.org/commentary/2... #BizTips #WritingTips

If you know how to read and it's not too inconvenient, look at this: thewalrus.ca/trc-introduc...

In this day and age, explaining to my "law in publishing" students the difference between non-copyrightable "facts" and "the 'fact that' someone said xyz means that xyz words are not copyrightable" is proving challenging. #facts

I would like this, please. My dentist is awesome, surely she should add this service!

I stopped habitually checking my mailbox beside my entry door ~2 years ago. Without home delivery, I might think to check it quarterly; or, more likely, only when someone calls to tell me they sent snail mail — much like my personal email box is out of mind. How about you? www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Picked this book up because it was available. Adored Oona Out of Order; recall if often. Acts of Violet, also by Margarita Montimore was almost as good.

Every corp wants to steal your data to train their LLMs ("AI"). Go turn it off in LinkedIn, now.

As much as I would enjoy copyediting instructional resources on BEASTFEEDING, this lesson is, in fact, about the breast. #typos #CollectThemAll

@merriam-webster.com the "close" button in your app is so beneath the battery symbol on an iPhone that the only way I can get back to the dictionary is to restart the app! It's been like this most of the year, at least.

Don't worry about GenAI taking your editing job! While it can't replace human editors, it's crucial to adapt to new technology. Use these essential Word tools to work more efficiently! zurl.co/9NdMw #GenAI #Editing #CopyEditing #Writing #Business #Tools #Freelancing #RightTouchEditing

Join me at ACES VCON25 for my 60-minute session titled "From Gut Feelings to Profit Growth: The Data Every Editor Needs to Track," on Wednesday, September 17, at 10:45 AM EDT, as I reveal the three critical data points that transformed my editing business from guesswork to growth; zurl.co/cP6Nz

#Editors, I've updated the #𝗖𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀' #𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 #𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲 by adding an entry about #Muslimah #Professionals in #Publishing and an entry about #MacroVerse, a #Discord discussion group for MS Word #macro users. #CKB www.kokedit.com/ckb_5.php and www.kokedit.com/ckb_4.php

😭 law course cut module #5 =rhyme moot A little bit of contracts on my mind A little bit of censorship in my life A little bit inaccuracy by my side A little bit of balance’s all I need A little bit of bias is what I see A little bit of copyright come undone A little bit of standards, all night long

On September 10, 2018, I launched the Editors of Color Database to raise the visibility of editorial professionals of color. Like many POC, I was tired of being left out of projects, interviews, panels, and jobs because the people in charge claimed we don’t exist… Continue on LinkedIn

The #Copyright #Clearance #Center is hosting a free virtual town hall, #AI & Copyright: Recent #Litigation Themes, on September 16 via LinkedIn Live. www.linkedin.com/posts/copyri...

It's hard to keep my cool when a writer replies "but AI says xyz" rather than looking in the style guide we are following. I don't give a flying fuck what that lying "AI" says, even if you had asked it the right question.

Legal issues in publishing—a case study: Rewriting half a memoir to avoid potential libel claims. Not because a case would win, but to avoid the expensive wrath of those who can afford to sue. youtube.com/shorts/2genW...

If you find creating style sheets time-consuming or tedious, take a look at my new QuickStyle template. It contains options for almost 150 major editorial style points and is fully customizable to your projects and clients. #copyediting #proofreading www.wordstitcheditorial.com/quickstyle-c...

Is there a publishing standard or convention that would advise against starting a document with content organized in a table? I have a complex doc that part of the team feels it would be "less weird" to turn the table into text. The table is highly effective, they just balk at starting with it.

The influence V result difference, if important, is too important to leave up to a single letter. Maybe it's time to retire affect and effect in favour of words with more impact [different letters]. 😂😵‍💫

This week's lecture is on bias, OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE, and other conscious language topics in editing [words]. It's impossible to guarantee that discussions or example language won't upset. How should I warn students/ invite them to participate in a productive way that minimizes harm to them?

Looking for authoritative guidance on styling of β-estradiol & medical dictionaries & journals are proving unhelpful. What's the standard or preferred use? β estr, β estradiol, B-estradiol, etc. Beta or B, hyphen or no? Short form??

Quoting lyrics—Please share your go-to blog posts that summarize for writers the ins and outs of using lyrics in their work. I am looking for resources for editing students.

More work for editors, did you say? futurism.com/companies-fi...

I've been chuckling, "yes, everyone does think 'AI' can do the editing." But I think it's time to revive @ivacheung.com's visualization: ivacheung.com/2015/05/smal...

Recent headlines that 60% of people in the USA live below the poverty line has me thinking about how many people that means. In Canada, 10% can't afford basic living expenses. Too many, either way, but astoundingly disproportionate. 4,254,666 in Canada : 205,247,606 in the USA

Have you heard about Editors Canada's adaptable contract template? Download it for free and keep everyone on good working terms! editors.ca/hire-an-edit... #freelancing #tools

Discussing memoir in my ethics & legal issues [in publishing] class (at SFU) reminded me of "My Grandma the Poisoner" in Vice magazine that haunts me. Even in the article, the writer relays being surprised that friends he told identified crime & menace in [amusing anecdotes].

In the ever-forward march toward closing up nouns (and some verbs!) it seems that videoconferencing is almost a decade old now. 😵‍💫

Glad to share news of Science Critters, my book of patterns to knit or crochet a slug or squid or other spineless beasts. Even some viruses!