The 2020 Digital W23 Speculation and Discussion Thread

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I have not yet seen a Production PDF so it's likely that next year is closer to the mark than this year. Sorry!

That's ok, I'm looking forward to getting it when it does comes out

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Intentional or accidental?

More like I'd been up close to two days and I'm not at my best in such cases. :/

Originally Posted by Ewan

That's ok, I'm looking forward to getting it when it does comes out

Thanks! I hope you like it. I put a lot of effort into it.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

More like I'd been up close to two days and I'm not at my best in such cases. :/

It just amused me to see that in a post about editing.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

It just amused me to see that in a post about editing.

:-) Like I said, sleep-deprived.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

:-) Like I said, sleep-deprived.

Having been a professional copy editor for over thirty years, I'm convinced that no one can copy edit their own writing, no matter how wide awake they are.

[whswhs]

Just as a note, my current project has gotten past the 2/3 point on the first draft. I've spent the past couple of days doing math; now I'm ready to get back to some of the parts that call for plain prose composition.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Having been a professional copy editor for over thirty years, I'm convinced that no one can copy edit their own writing, no matter how wide awake they are.

I'm glad to hear you say that. I grade student papers all the time and usually do pretty well at catching their errors. But I can't catch my own as easily.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by safisher

I'm glad to hear you say that. I grade student papers all the time and usually do pretty well at catching their errors. But I can't catch my own as easily.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Having been a professional copy editor for over thirty years, I'm convinced that no one can copy edit their own writing, no matter how wide awake they are.

I'm right there. What I said recently to a would-be author of a children's book who asked for a consult on self-publishing is that when one reads and edits their own work, the tendency is to read what you want to be there instead of what's there. There are strategies to avoid that (like having another person read your work to you out loud), but by and large an editor who is not you is better for the health of a project.

[RogerBW]

While not in any way disagreeing with this, I'll note that one useful trick if you do have to edit your own work is to lay it out differently. For example, I've just been writing a thing in LibreOffice; if I export to PDF and view it slightly more zoomed in, I find I spot all sorts of small errors that weren't obvious earlier.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

While not in any way disagreeing with this, I'll note that one useful trick if you do have to edit your own work is to lay it out differently. For example, I've just been writing a thing in LibreOffice; if I export to PDF and view it slightly more zoomed in, I find I spot all sorts of small errors that weren't obvious earlier.

For me, the best way to do this is to print it out. Hard copy is better than screen copy.