RSS

Category Archives: proofreading

Why should editors be thinking about and using conscious language? [shared post]

Today I’m sharing what is the best explanation I’ve seen of the need for editors to be aware of conscious language. I’m a non-fiction editor and Louise Harnby edits fiction but the principles remain the same.

In her article, Louise Harnby covers:

What is ‘conscious language’?
‘But I’m not part of the “woke” brigade’
The foundations of editing
Are you part of the professional editing brigade?
Why conscious language is also about successful authoring
Why conscious language is about consideration rather than prescription
A case study
Helping our clients
Tools that help with conscious language

Read the rest of the article here.

This is such an important topic. I’ve been using “singular they” for a long time, and other aspects I’ve covered in my editing include not gendering people when they’re mentioned as examples in texts, working to eliminate terms in networking which are now outdated and pejorative and suggesting different terms for ones which are now considered pejorative in an ablist context.

As Louise mentions, as professional editors, we’re aiming to help our authors reach as wide an audience as possible, and if they risk alienating portions of that audience through the use of language that can be avoided, it’s our job to help them not do so.

Do editors make mistakes? What should you do if you find your editor has made a mistake?

25 Oct

I have written a little bit about errors in editing before, but this article by my colleague Erin Brenner of Right Touch Editing says everything that I would say about the issue.

Another reason editing can’t be perfect is the simple fact that editors are as human as writers and designers and every other person on our planet. Even though we’re trained and practiced at finding errors, we do miss them. And we’ll miss more of them when there are a lot of errors in the manuscript. Catching more errors might mean taking another pass through the document, which could mean more time and more expense. A good editor keeps your timeline and budget in mind when trying to make the manuscript the best it can be.

Read the full article here.

1 Comment

Posted by Liz Dexter on October 25, 2021 in Copyediting, Errors, Ethics, proofreading, Writing

Tags: Copyediting, errors, learning, writing

Essay mills are to become illegal in the UK

11 Oct

The BBC has reported that “essay mills”, where companies sell pre-written complete essays to students, are to be outlawed as part of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. I welcome this, and hope it will drive this practice away from higher education. However, this does need to be accompanied by better essay-writing and pastoral care support for students, who are often tempted to cheat, not out of laziness, but because of high social and academic pressures.

What is an essay mill?

An essay mill is a company that exists to make money from providing pre-written essays and even dissertations on topics which students purchase and try to pass of as their own.

In my (of course entirely legitimate and very careful) dealings with student clients, I come across so many examples of organisations who prey on them and abuse them while extracting money from them. More times than I can count, a student has come to me having already had their essay “edited”, which has, at best, involved running a simple spell check over it. Particularly for students whose English is an additional language to the one or more languages they are already fluent in, this can be woefully insufficient for them. They pay money, often a lot of it, and are left with something not fit for purpose that needs re-editing. When I worked on a university campus, I would see stickers on lamp-posts offering editing or proofreading services for students, or, indeed, advertising essay mills.

Why are students tempted to use essay mills?

I firmly believe this is not all out of laziness and trying to buy your way through university. Of course, some examples may be that, but in my decade and more of dealing with students, especially overseas students who are not fluent writers in English, I have seen the huge pressure to perform that can sometimes overwhelm. Overseas students in particular pay huge fees to attend British universities, even higher than national students, and this money has been paid by families or sponsors. I am not sure that English language support is even across institutes of higher education and I have come across many students who clearly understand their topic but lack the skills to present it in English that is deemed acceptable by their authorities.

I need to emphasise here that I have huge respect for anyone pursuing higher education in their second, third, fourth, whatever language. My French is decent and my Spanish is getting there, my Icelandic can raise a wan smile and I can speak Italian only when in Italy: I would not wish to write a university-level essay in any of these languages. Also, it’s not only overseas students who use essay mills.

So you’re pressured to make good use of the money that’s been spent on you, you know your English skills are not brilliant, and you see an ad where you can buy an essay. What are you going to do?

What happens if a student submits an essay they’ve bought from an essay mill?

Universities and colleges are of course wise to the use of essay mills and the purchase of pre-written essays. Of course these essays aren’t individually written for each student, so they will crop up regularly. Plagiarism software will pick them up easily, and the tutor may also realise that the language used is very different from the student’s usual level of English.

I would hope that the university would offer support in English language skills and essay writing rather than simply censuring the student. I hope there’s more understanding for the people they have brought over and charged highly for this British education.

Dealing with plagiarism carefully

Of course this is all about plagiarism: passing someone else’s work off as your own. Legitimate and careful editors/proofreaders who work with students, like me, are very careful about plagiarism. I have a line I won’t cross in terms of how many corrections and suggestions I’ll make to a student’s work, and I have turned down work several times where it’s clear that too much help is needed from me, and advised the student to approach their tutor for support. I have some resources about plagiarism below.

If you’re a student looking for help and support with essays, I suggest you do the following:

Ask your tutor or the library support staff if there are any courses or classes available
If you need a proofreader for your essays, ask your tutor or classmates if they can recommend someone
If you need to find a proofreader for your essays or dissertation yourself, look for a service provider who has a statement about plagiarism and terms and conditions on their website. Ask them how they do the work, and check that they leave Tracked Changes turned on so you can see and assess their changes and decide yourself if you want to accept them.

This article was triggered by the announcement that essay farms are going to be made illegal in the UK. I have explained what they are and why students might used them, pleaded for understanding and discussed how else students can find support, with a mention of how they might choose that support. There are some resources below on plagiarism which you might also find useful.

Other resources on this website

For students

Choosing a proofreader – student edition

My terms and conditions

Why has my proofreader not edited my bibliography?

Referencing – how to keep track and how to refer to your reference materials

How to quote sources without plagiarising – rewording and quoting appropriately

Essay tips for new students – handy for undergraduates

Top tips for dissertations and theses – from people who’ve been there

Top tips for writing up your PhD

Appropriate language in academic writing

For editors

On (not) crossing the line

Plagiarism – what it is and how a proofreader should work with student material (and my terms and conditions)

Student at risk of plagiarism 1: What do you do when a text isn’t referenced properly?

Student at risk of plagiarism 3: Sending feedback to your student client and their supervisor

6 Comments

Posted by Liz Dexter on October 11, 2021 in Copyediting, Ethics, proofreading, Students, Writing

Tags: errors, students, writing

What are the stages involved in writing my book?

06 May

What are the stages involved in writing a book? Where do editing, proofreading and beta reading fit in?

Authors often get confused about the different stages and people involved in getting a book published. It’s not as simple as “Write a book – get it published!” but nor should it be so complicated that only the professionals understand it.

I work with a lot of people who are indie-publishing or self-publishing their book, however these stages will be roughly the same whether you’re publishing in the traditional route with a publisher, or going it alone. When the publisher gets involved can also vary.

What are the processes my book needs to go through?

Here are the basic stages for your book.

Plan
First draft
Second draft
Beta readers
Third draft
Edit (usually in Word)
Fourth draft and preparation for publishing (layout artist, cover art, blurb)
Proofread (usually in PDF or another file format from which the book will actually be produced)
Publish

Note: You might have a substantive edit before or just after the beta readers; if you have one after that stage, it’s an idea to add another beta read in afterwards, which would give you this:

Plan
First draft
Second draft
Beta readers
Third draft
Substantive edit (usually in Word)
Fourth draft
More beta readers or the same ones again
Fifth draft
Edit (usually in Word)
Sixth draft and preparation for publishing (layout artist, cover art, blurb)
Proofread (usually in PDF or another file format from which the book will actually be produced)
Publish

One last point: it’s better to have your edit and proofread done by different people: just as it’s hard to edit your own work, it’s hard not to miss things if you’re proofreading something you edited. See the link below for how to handle the style sheet you will need.

Can I print a Word document to PDF and retain the tracked changes?

24 Jul

If you want to print or save a Word document to change it into a PDF, and you have Tracked Changes showing in the Word document, will those tracked changes still show up in the PDF?

I needed to check this myself this morning, so now I’ve confirmed what happens, I thought I’d write a quick article about it, on the grounds that if I’ve had to check, someone else will need to, too (bloggers: this is a good way to inspire blog posts if you’re lacking ideas!).

So here is the definitive answer to the question Can I save a Word document as a PDF and keep the tracked changes showing.

Why save a Word document with tracked changes into a PDF?

This came about because I was discussing plagiarism with a colleague and explaining what I do if I need to confirm from a client’s supervisor that it’s OK to make as many changes as I’m making to their text. I mentioned that sometimes I will send over a copy of the work so far, and sometimes I’ll go as far as to turn the Word document into a PDF so it can’t be altered between me and the supervisor. But will the tracked changes still show up?

Proof that tracked changes still show on the PDF

So here’s my Word document, complete with tracked changes (make sure these are showing):

Just a reminder that in the newer versions of Word you can save to a PDF automatically without having to go through third-party software. Choose File – Save As then drop the file type down to choose PDF:

Then when you open it in your PDF reader (I use PDF-XChange Viewer), there are all the tracked changes!

So, if you want to preserve your tracked changes so they can’t be, um, well, changed, printing to PDF will give you an image of them you can share.

I hope you’ve found this useful – do click the Like or Share buttons or comment if I’ve helped you out!

Please note: these tips work for Microsoft Word version 2007 and upwards. They are not guaranteed or tested for Word for Mac.

Student at risk of plagiarism 2: What do you do when the editor risks changing too much of the text?

10 Jul

Plagiarism involves passing someone else’s work off as your own. There are two kinds of plagiarism: there’s plagiarism done by the student when they don’t reference or credit a quotation or theory and are therefore effectively using someone else’s work without credit (which I’ve written about here). The second kind of plagiarism, which we’re talking about here, is where an editor has done so much work on a student text that they’re almost a second author, and the student is then at risk of passing the editor’s work off as their own.

I have written this series of articles for editors who are working with documents produced by students: an essay, thesis, dissertation or article, for example.

Let’s have a look at the levels of change an editor might make when working with student materials and how to tell when the editor is at risk of plagiarism from the level of work they’re doing on the text.

Usually when working on student essays, dissertations and theses, I will come across issues with the language and writing:

Uses capitals and hyphens inconsistently
Uses British and American spellings (or British s and (Oxford) z spellings) inconsistently
Uses inverted commas for quotations and scare quotes inconsistently
Uses the wrong tenses
Uses the wrong agreements (he have, they has)
Includes typos (form/from)
Has a sentence structure which is confused BUT I can tell they understand what they’re writing about and have made a good attempt to write that in English (English is not the first language of most of my student clients)

There’s an accompanying issue with the reference list or bibliography, so a minor issue would be:

Some mistakes and inconsistencies in the bibliography, where I’m not changing more than about one in ten entries in a major way (turning book titles into italics, etc.) or one in five in a minor way (full stops after initials, making spacing of initials consistent)

In these cases I will (with Track Changes turned on, of course!) and make it all consistent and amend the tense, agreement, typo or sentence.

And, if I find

A theory or term which is not explained
A sentence which can be taken in one of two ways, and it’s not clear what it means
A sentence or paragraph which is jumbled or confused and I can’t make it out

I will leave the sentence and add a comment explaining that the term needs to be explained, what the ambiguous sentence could mean or that I can’t understand it and the student needs to rewrite it.

And if there’s

A reference that’s missing publisher or place, journal volume, etc. information

I will add a note that the student needs to check and add the relevant information

It’s probably worth mentioning here that I offer to re-check up to 10% of the total word count after rewrites; this feels fair to my student clients and I’ve never had anyone ask me to re-check anything like that amount of text.

But what if it’s more major changes and the resulting risk of plagiarism?

More major issues would include

Confused use of terms which clearly show a lack of understanding of the subject (this sounds nebulous but jumps out in real-life examples, none of which I can obviously show you!)
Garbled results which don’t make sense
Many sentences which aren’t at all clear or, if I can guess the meaning, would need a complete rewrite to make them at all clear – and I start having to do that
A completely chaotic bibliography with no attempt to make it consistent or match it to the style guide which needs work on almost every entry

If any (or all) of these are present in the text, and I’m making a lot of comments on the text, plus a lot of the changes in the above sections, I will get to a certain point (usually 1,000-2,000 words in), have a look at what I’ve done, and make a judgement as to whether I’m risking changing too much.

It’s all done in Tracked Changes so surely I’m not writing it for them!

Yes, we do everything in Tracked Changes as standard, and I have standard text which asks the client to examine all changes and decide if they accept or reject them. However, there is an “Accept All Changes” button and with the best editor will in the world, some students will just press that. How much of the work then is theirs?

What do I do if I find I’m doing too much on a text?

I want to highlight here that this is often not the student’s intentional fault. This applies to referencing, too, and it’s often to do with the learning they’ve received in their home country, the pressures of having to write in their non-first language, and pressures from home around getting this UK or US degree and bringing that knowledge home. But I believe we have a duty to help the student not plagiarise. In the case of referencing, this will get caught by software used by the universities such as TurnItIn. In the case of our work, it might not be so detectable, although a supervisor presented with perfect English by a student who struggles to write in English may be suspicious. We want to help our clients and make sure they don’t get accused of something they didn’t intend to do.

Sending feedback to the student and their supervisor

It’s at this point that my articles on the two kinds of plagiarism coincide. if you’re following along with this series in real time, I’ve already written about what to feed back to the student and their supervisor and how to do it, so as to avoid making you wait for the punchline by doing it the other way round.

So to find out my good practice in contacting students and their supervisors over the risk of plagiarism, please see this article.

Student at risk of plagiarism 1: What to do when the student hasn’t referenced their text correctly

26 Jun

Plagiarism is the act of passing someone else’s work off as your own. There are two kinds of plagiarism in student work: one is plagiarism done directly by a student, where they fail to reference or credit a quotation or theory and are effectively using someone else’s work without credit. The second kind of plagiarism is where an editor has done so much work on a student text that they’re almost a second author, and the student is then at risk of passing the editor’s work off as their own.

This article is written for editors who are working with student texts, whether that’s essays, dissertations, theses or articles for publication.

Let’s have a look at the levels of risk of plagiarism and an example of good practice when working with student materials when the editor is at risk of plagiarism from the level of work they’re doing on the text.

Often when working on student essays, dissertations and theses, I will come across a small example of a risk of plagiarism. This could include

A statement such as “researchers have found that” before an assertion, without a reference to who has found this information
A reference not being included after a quotation, where most of the quotations are referenced correctly
What is clearly a direct quotation which has not been placed in inverted commas, even if it’s got a reference after it, but this is an anomaly in an otherwise well-referenced document
What is clearly a direct quotation which has not been placed in inverted commas AND it hasn’t got a reference after it, but this is an anomaly in an otherwise well-referenced document

I count these as minor infringements and I will just mark these up with a comment asking the student to provide the reference, add inverted commas or rewrite the sentences in their own words.

I should mention here that I offer to re-check up to 10% of the total word count after rewrites; this feels fair to my student clients and I’ve never had anyone ask me to re-check as much as that: if it happens, it’s usually about 1%.

Red flags in referencing

Unfortunately, I do come across student texts (and this is not limited to students: have encountered web text and even books lifted from other sources without reference) where the following occurs:

What is clearly a direct quotation which has not been placed in inverted commas, even if it’s got a reference after it, happening multiple times
What is clearly a direct quotation which has not been placed in inverted commas AND it hasn’t got a reference after it, and this is happening multiple times, even pages and pages worth of direct quotations from other sources
A section in a different colour or font where no attempt has been made to hide this has come from elsewhere
A section where the client has either added a comment or put it in a particular colour and asked me to rewrite what is clearly a direct quote from elsewhere (this is thankfully rare)

How do I tell when something’s a direct quote that the student hasn’t either referenced or written themselves?

The standard of English changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes very obviously
The type of English changes (US to UK, s to z spellings, and vice versa)
Referencing within that section is markedly different to that within the student’s own work
It’s in a different colour or font

How do I check if text is not written by the student?

Google is my friend here? I take a sentence, pop it in Google and see where it came from. My suspicion that it’s someone else’s text are usually correct.

Sending feedback to the student and their supervisor

I try to be kind here. The student may be under a lot of pressure, or may not have understood how to do referencing. I will guide them to ask their supervisor or any support they have in the department or their university library.

So to find out my good practice in contacting students and their supervisors over the risk of plagiarism, please see this article.

Student at risk of plagiarism 3: Giving feedback to your student client and their supervisor

13 Jun

What do you do when you detect a risk of plagiarism in a student text and you need to give feedback to the student and possibly their supervisor? How do you stop a student feeling accused? How do you get confirmation from the supervisor that what you’re doing is acceptable by their institution?

In this post for editors working with student texts, I share the good practice I’ve developed over my ten years in operation when dealing with the two kinds of plagiarism I encounter in student work:

Plagiarism conducted directly by a student who does not reference or credit quotations, results and theories (therefore passing other people’s work off as their own)
Plagiarism that arises when you as the editor are doing far too many corrections and effectively risking co-writing the text (therefore risking the student passing your work off as their own)

I will write about these two risks of plagiarism in two further articles which I will link to here when they’re published. I’m publishing this one first to avoid leaving readers who are reading along dangling, as this article covers both types of plagiarism and is referenced at the ends of both articles as the end point of their processes.

What do I do if I encounter or risk enabling plagiarism?

Once I’ve realised a text is at risk of plagiarism (and in my experience, both kinds often come together in a text), I will follow these levels of action/escalation:

Stop working on the text*
Contact the student client immediately
1. Explain what the problem is
2. Offer solutions the client can use (go through the text, find where you’re missing references or need to show direct quotes/reference and insert those, etc.)
The student client will get back to me with one of two answers
1. “I will amend the text and send it back to you”. If that happens, great, and if they’ve done it correctly, I carry on working on the text
2. “It’s OK, just rewrite the direct quotes”/”Just make the changes to my sentences, my tutor says it’s OK”. If that happens, I go to step 4
It’s time to stop the work or ask for contact from the supervisor:
1. If 3. i has occurred, I reiterate that the student must write direct quotes in their own words and I can’t do that for them. If an impasse is reached, I state I cannot work on the text any more and invoice the student client.**
2. If 3. ii has occurred, I ask the student to provide me with evidence that their supervisor has approved the level of work I need to do on the text
  1. I send the student the text that I have amended so far, asking them to present that to their supervisor (I might in an extreme case save this as a PDF to prevent them accepting all changes and then just going and using someone else for the next part)
  2. I ask for either a letter from the tutor on headed paper OR a direct email from the supervisor instructing me to do this work. I leave this up to the student to do. This helps them not feel I’m reporting on them (as I say in Part 2, this is often down to stress, pressure or lack of understanding rather than explicit wrongdoing) and it saves me having to try to contact the supervisor myself.
Depending on what I hear from the supervisor, conclude the work relationship or continue working:
1. If I hear back from the supervisor in the negative, I stop work, invoice the client and keep the letter from the supervisor for a period of time
2. If I hear back that I can continue, I continue with the work, present it to the client and save the tutor’s letter with the work files

* I have a statement in my terms and conditions that I will invoice for any work done before I detect plagiarism. I charge by the word, so I check the word count and invoice based on that.

** I will always suggest to the student that they contact their student support services, often attached to their department or library, who can give help with language issues and referencing procedures. I see my role as helping, not blaming or punishing the student for their mistake.

This article has outlined what I do to provide feedback to the student client and their supervisor when I encounter plagiarism in student work. My resources this website about plagiarism are listed below. Do comment if you use another good method or have used this one with success.

Track changes – how do I get rid of the text box that appears when I hover over words in a Word document?

13 Feb

How do you get rid of document tooltips? How do you stop the little text boxes appearing when you hover over deleted or added words in Word. I had a query about this in a comment and thought that it warranted some screen shots and instructions.

What’s the problem here? What do you mean by these text boxes?

When you’ve worked with Track Changes enabled in Word, as well as showing you what your editor or collaborator has deleted or inserted into the text in red and with bubbles in the margin, you also get text boxes when you hover over the change. Here’s what that looks like:

Some people get annoyed by this, so here’s how to turn it off.

How do I turn off document tooltips aka those little text boxes that show me what I’ve deleted?

This process works for Word 2010 and later versions:

Click File on the far left of the tabs and then Options:

Once in Options, choose Display:

The Display dialogue box has an option to Show document tooltips on hover. Untick this by clicking in the square, then choose OK.

Now you won’t see those boxes in the document.

However, it does NOT turn off the useful tooltips in the rest of Word – so if you hover over any of the items on the Ribbon, you will still see the usual tooltips there.

If you’re using Word 2007, click the round button in the top left corner, choose Word Options at the very bottom of the dialogue box, then as above, select Display and untick Show document tooptips on hover.

Please note: these tips work for Microsoft Word version 2007 and upwards. They are not guaranteed or tested for Word for Mac.

I want to publish my book but I’m confused! Do I need an editor, a line editor or a proofreader?

27 Jun

I was recently writing back to a prospective client who had got very confused about the different types of editing and proofreading and the process needed for publishing their book. I sent them some resources from this blog and thought it might be useful to share those here, too.

So, here are some articles I’ve written about the different kinds of editing, the process of editing and proofreading (and where your beta readers fit in to that process) and how to make sure your editor and proofreader are, ahem, on the same page. At the bottom are two articles I’ve written about how to deal with an editor – that can feel like an alarming process in itself, so hopefully I’ll reassure you there!

This one talks about the different kinds of editing and proofreading (it’s biased towards fiction but also works for non-fiction):

Do I need editing or proofreading?

This one sets out the processes you go through and their order:

What questions should I ask my beta readers? #amwriting

It’s certainly best to have different people do the edit and final proofread, as it’s not great to have the same eyes going over and over a text (that’s why we can’t proofread our own work!). If you use two people for these stages, make sure your editor provides you with a style sheet to pass on to your proofreader – more on style sheets here:

What is a style sheet? For people using editors

And when you’re ready to talk to an editor (or proofreader), here are two articles explaining that side of the process, so you and your prospective editor can experience a smooth process and happy negotiation:

How to request a quotation from an editor:

Working with an editor 1: How do I request a quote from an editor or proofreader? #amwriting

Ideas on negotiating and booking in your project:

Working with an editor 2: How do I negotiate with an editor or proofreader and book my project in? #amwriting

I hope you’ve found this very quick guide to dealing with the complexities of getting your book edited and proofread, and how to deal with contacting an editor, useful. If you have, please share this article using the buttons below, or leave me a comment. Thank you!

5 Comments

Posted by Liz Dexter on June 27, 2018 in Copyediting, proofreading, Writing

Tags: Copyediting, proofreading, writing

LibroEditing proofreading, editing, transcription, localisation

Category Archives: proofreading

Why should editors be thinking about and using conscious language? [shared post]

Do editors make mistakes? What should you do if you find your editor has made a mistake?

Essay mills are to become illegal in the UK

What are the stages involved in writing my book?

What are the processes my book needs to go through?

Other useful articles

Can I print a Word document to PDF and retain the tracked changes?

Why save a Word document with tracked changes into a PDF?

Proof that tracked changes still show on the PDF

Other track changes articles on this website

Student at risk of plagiarism 2: What do you do when the editor risks changing too much of the text?

But what if it’s more major changes and the resulting risk of plagiarism?

It’s all done in Tracked Changes so surely I’m not writing it for them!

What do I do if I find I’m doing too much on a text?

Sending feedback to the student and their supervisor

Related posts on this blog:

Student at risk of plagiarism 1: What to do when the student hasn’t referenced their text correctly

Red flags in referencing

Sending feedback to the student and their supervisor

Related posts on this blog:

Student at risk of plagiarism 3: Giving feedback to your student client and their supervisor

What do I do if I encounter or risk enabling plagiarism?

Track changes – how do I get rid of the text box that appears when I hover over words in a Word document?

What’s the problem here? What do you mean by these text boxes?

How do I turn off document tooltips aka those little text boxes that show me what I’ve deleted?

Other track changes articles on this website

I want to publish my book but I’m confused! Do I need an editor, a line editor or a proofreader?

Search

Recent Posts

Twitter Updates

Archives

Category Archives: proofreading

What are the processes my book needs to go through?

Other useful articles

Why save a Word document with tracked changes into a PDF?

Proof that tracked changes still show on the PDF

Other track changes articles on this website

But what if it’s more major changes and the resulting risk of plagiarism?

It’s all done in Tracked Changes so surely I’m not writing it for them!

What do I do if I find I’m doing too much on a text?

Sending feedback to the student and their supervisor

Related posts on this blog:

Red flags in referencing

Sending feedback to the student and their supervisor

Related posts on this blog:

What do I do if I encounter or risk enabling plagiarism?

What’s the problem here? What do you mean by these text boxes?

How do I turn off document tooltips aka those little text boxes that show me what I’ve deleted?

Other track changes articles on this website

Search

Recent Posts

Category Cloud

Archives