Running List of Past Daily Assignments 


For Wednesday, 1/18:

  • Come ready to jump in!


In Class on Wednesday, 1/18:


For Friday, 1/20:

  • Complete this incoming survey.

  • Read Book Business, preface through the end of Ch. 2 (pages ix-67).

  • Bring a selected passage from the reading or a question to discuss.
    (Heads up: I will call on you.)


In-Class on Friday:


For Monday, 1/23:

  • Review Book Business through page 67 in light of Friday’s class and see if anything strikes you differently. Bring your passages/questions back on Monday, and we’ll jump in with those.

  • Listen to this interview with and around long-time editor Robert Gottlieb: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1146641641 

    • Jot down a few questions/responses to discuss in Monday’s class.

  • Take at least 20 minutes to explore the “go-to” resources from Slide #25
    (note that some of those resources aren’t free; don’t pay to get past any paywalls).


For Wednesday, 1/25:

  • Bring your concept notes with you to Wednesday’s class, along with about 2 messy pages toward getting your ideas out.

  • Optional: Read Book Business 69-109. That’s where we’ll pick up in discussion on Friday.


In class on Wednesday, 1/25:

  • Share your messy pages with your groups of 2-4. Take a few minutes to ask each other (and note down for yourselves!):

    • What kind of writing were you going for?

    • Who’s your target audience?

    • What are you trying to achieve and why?

    • What do you think is going well? What do you think needs help before you move on to the next draft?

  • Take 10-15 minutes: Read each others’ pages in light of their answers to those questions and write queries in the margins. Feel free to interact with other group members’ comments. Consider:

    • Where is the writing working to accomplish their goals, and where do you see mismatches?

    • What do you expect them to do next?

    • How do you anticipate them proceeding?

    • What are some of your favorite elements of the piece (might be content, tone, goal, etc.)?

  • Come back and discuss with your partners.


For Friday, 1/27:

  • Read Book Business 69-109, and come ready to discuss—bring questions, observations, ideas, etc. Feel free to put the book content in conversation with your own experiences with writing/editing.

  • Go back to your messy pages. Write more. :) Take your editors’ notes into accounts as you redirect, develop more, whatever you decide to do next. Bring about 800 words to class, mid-process (i.e., further along than Wednesday, but they don’t need to be polished and the piece shouldn’t be finished yet).

  • Write a reflection (typed or handwritten/photographed is fine; whatever works for you) and submit it to Collab’s File Drop for this class:

    • How is this writing/editorial process feeling to you so far? What’s familiar and what feels different from your typical experience with writing and/or editing?

    • As a writer, what do you find satisfying and what do you find obnoxious/challenging about working with an editor or editors? What do you want to get from your editor(s) on Friday?

    • As an editor, what is enjoyable so far about giving input/guidance to others on their work in progress? What do you find stressful or obnoxious, etc.?

  • Optional: Our first guest speaker is Laura Stanfill, publisher of Forest Avenue Press. Feel free to look her up and even to check out her novel, Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary.


For Monday, 1/30:

  • Read Book Business through page 142

  • Bring revised/”final” drafts of your writing to class

  • Heads up: You’ll be working on your group presentations together, so I’ll ask you to compare notes on how this process went and select examples of your process work from each of your pieces (to show on screen this coming Friday)


For Wednesday, 2/1:


For Friday, 2/3:

  • Finish your group presentations and be ready to present—looking forward to seeing your work and hearing your reflections!

  • For your portfolios, please gather all of your process work (messy pages, drafts, notes, etc.) into a single PDF and upload to your Collab File Drop box.

    • If you’re not sure how to convert files (such as Google docs, Word docs, images, etc.) to PDF and merge them into a single file, I usually recommend smallpdf.com (over the past few years, the first 5 conversions/daily have been free without needing to sign up).


For Monday, 2/6:

GREAT work on your Unit I projects, everyone—your presentations were fascinating. Can’t wait to jump back into discussions with you next week!

Monday IS our next guest speaker day, and we’ll meet on Zoom once more for ease of communication. Here’s the Zoom meeting link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/4629103081 

I’ll ask you to add questions to this Google doc for agent/editor extraordinaire Chris Min Park—you can do that any time now, or during class time on Monday (we can keep a live document with questions).

For guidance, Chris will be able to talk more about the “Top 5” experience of agenting, acquisitions, and editing; feel free to ask her questions about the industry and her experience, but also to discuss anything that’s already come as interesting to you in terms of editorial practice and experience. (Like how does an editor learn what to ask an author, where to push for change, where to back off, etc? How do you train yourself to recognize potential in authors/projects? Or how do you pace yourself for a big editorial project? Or whatever—I’m just brainstorming off of some of the points you raised in your presentations.)

Also note that Laura Stanfill went back to our questions doc and added answers to anyone who didn’t get “air time” live on Wednesday—her written responses are so interesting!


For Wednesday, 2/8:

  • Read Peter Ginna, What Editors Do, chapters 6-8.

    • Focus esp. on Ch. 8

      *Note that Ch. 8 author Scott Norton uses the term “developmental editing” as we use “substantive editing”—just try to substitute in your mind; he’s talking about structural/big-picture stuff that we’ll focus on in Unit 2. :)


For Friday, 2/10:

  • Go to Clemons reserve and spend a little time with your assigned books for this unit.

    • Update as of Thursday, 2/9, 1:25 pm—all books have been processed and are available for checkout.
      *Furious Hours is one the Harper Lee group will want to look at.

    • Feel free to dig around online and see what you can find about differences between editions, any editorial histories available, etc., just make sure you get back to the actual books and use your own judgment as soon as possible.

  • Read What Editors Do, chapters 14 and 15. Compare and contrast, but focus on your text’s genre in terms of what you’ll need to apply:

    • Group One (Raymond Carver): more literary fiction, Ch. 14

    • Group Two (Karen Hall): more genre fiction, Ch. 15

    • Group Three (Harper Lee): who’s to say? you get to worry about both! :-D

    • Group Four (Stephen King): more genre fiction, Ch. 15


In Class on Friday, 2/10:

More to come, but for now:

  • Good news! An author friend of mine who’s published both academic books and commercial fiction says she can come talk to us on Monday. So heads up, I’ll be moving Monday’s class to Zoom again, and on Friday, I’ll ask you to post questions for Lydia.


For Monday, 2/13:

  • Please post questions for Lydia as soon as you’re able!

  • Remember that we’re meeting on Zoom again for Monday’s class! Here’s the link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/4629103081  

  • Keep working on your assigned books for your sub editing project.

  • Review these documents from our guest speaker and author, Lydia Cooper:

  • Review these documents from me for publisher-side context on the acquisitions process—this is the best I could manage for now!

    • on P&Ls
      *P&L means “profit and loss” statement—it’s usually set up as an interactive form (the one on this website is set up in Excel, so you can download and play with it if you want to) for editors to plug numbers into until they can “make something work” financially enough to be willing to sign the project. We then go back and use the worksheet throughout the publication process, so for instance if someone wants to increase the print run, or change the format, or the manuscript came in short and we want to see if we can get away with a shorter book or if we need to push for more content, we use the P&L system to start figuring those things out.

    • Sample commercial proposal and fact sheet

      • Those turned into this book, btw.

      • Just a note to clarify that I did a ton of support staff work in acquisitions when I was at Hachette (i.e., background research, cold calling, project management, sitting in on agent meetings, but not being the one to decide what to pursue or sign). I was always better, IMO, at process editing over acquisitions, which in practical terms means I ended up editing projects I was handed and rarely had any say over what they were. This example proposal is pretty typical for a mid-range book project; the fact sheet is from earlier in the process (you’ll see lots of placeholders for material that hadn’t been finalized yet); and these authors are quite delightful people.


For Wednesday, 2/22:

Scan the relevant pages from your source manuscripts (both versions, as needed) and bring hard copies to class on Wednesday.

*Just a note: I usually use the Microsoft Lens app for scanning books; it lets you adjust the pages and make things more readable than taking standard pages, and it’s less of a pain than going to the big scanners. Though as I recall, there’s a nice free-standing scanner in one of the libraries (used to be in Alderman, so it’s probably in Clemons?), if you prefer that.

Make notes toward your sub-edit and be ready to discuss with your group on Wednesday. (You might especially think about the format, content, length, and organizational issues as you consider what to focus on in editing.)


For Friday, 2/24:

*Update: I’ve fallen ill and am likely contagious. Sigh. I’ll be in my office, but I’m moving class back to Zoom again (so sorry) to minimize infection. We can start Friday’s class in the main Zoom room to discuss part 2 below, and then move into breakout rooms. If your group is super organized and you want to meet up in person for that collaboration time, feel free—we can be flexible for your group work. Zoom link is https://virginia.zoom.us/j/4629103081. 

  1. Reviewing your scanned pages, take some time on a separate location (on separate paper, a whiteboard, whatever) to sketch out or diagram the main plot and character points for the section you’ve chosen. What’s going on in the source draft? Try to capture as much as possible in a brief sketch. THEN go back and see what’s working and what’s not. Then consider what you want to keep (and how) and what you want to cut or change dramatically. Note any challenges you’re still having in figuring out the big-picture edits to plot, character, tone, etc.

  2. Read through these sample edits (letters and a ms), and feel free to read critically—I have critical notes for myself, too. (Note that some of these are from 2008, so I’ve changed my own editorial style, and also some of the approaches I was using were either required by the publisher or responding to the “rhetorical situation” of the author/readership/publisher. La la la. I do understand why editors and authors don’t like sharing their process work with others. :-D)

    Please do NOT share any of these files outside of this class, particularly as the authors have not given consent.

Project 1: Laura Barge, Exploring Worldviews in Literature: From Wordsworth to Edward Albee

Project 2: Meinte Boersma, Business-Friendly DSLs

For discussion on Friday:

  • What do you notice about what’s included and excluded from the edit letters?

  • What do you notice about tone (maybe successful and maybe not)?

  • What’s the balance between broad/structural and specific?

  • How does Laura’s letter connect to her marked-up manuscript?

  • What do you notice about the tone and directive-passive balance in the queries for Laura?

  • Do you have other observations or questions to discuss? (Feel free to be direct; we’re here to learn, and that happens best when we can get some critical distance from our own work—including my edits. Ha.)


For Monday, 2/27:

  1. Work as a group to convert your source file into Word or Google docs—something where you can track changes while you move and strike content, add queries, etc.
    *(You can start by exporting the PDF from Google Drive into Word or Rich Text Format (.rtf) and then work through the documents side-by-side until you have it in an editable format.)

  2. See where you are in your own editing process. Is there anything you need to reverse outline, sketch out/diagram, map somehow to see what’s happening in the source document? If so, take an hour or so to do that.

  3. If you have any time left:

    • Reflect in your personal notes about what you really want to preserve about the original document and what you most want to see changed, and why. Think big, big picture here—these large ideas should then help guide your specific edits, to make them cohesive.

    • Go ahead and try to make some edits directly into the document—see what comes naturally, and see where you have trouble. Feel free to type in notes you’d already been making on your hard copy. We’ll discuss on Monday.


For Wednesday, 3/1:

  • Share with me a copy of your editable file (one per group).
    *I’ll do a quick read-through before classes on Wednesday/Friday and spend some time with each group over those 2 days, discussing your edits/ideas/challenges. I’ll plan to meet with the Karen Hall and Stephen King groups on Wednesday and the Raymond Carver and Harper Lee groups on Friday.

  • Optional: Feel free to make your edits-in-progress shareable with me if you want input. I can’t write a bunch of notes, but I’m happy to look over and discuss them live as much as we have time!


For Monday, 3/13:

  • Come to class with your edits as finished as possible, so you can spend the time working toward your presentations. I’ll ask you to compare and contrast your drafts among your group members, as you consider the argument(s) you’d like to make in your Unit 2 presentations.


For Wednesday, 3/15:

  • Try to have finished your edit letters/edited ms [manuscript] files; I’ll ask you to spend most of class time on your group presentations before Friday.

  • Fwiw, here’s an additional edit letter that’s a better example in terms of tone for your projects.
    *To reiterate, your letter does not need to be this long! I’m expecting 1-2 pages single-spaced, ish.


For Friday, 3/17:

  • Post your presentation slides here before class. (Google Drive folders)

  • Post your individual editing files here, any time before midnight. (Collab File Drop)


For Monday, 3/20:

Obviously, I didn’t get any reading assignment posted. :-D Hope you had good weekends!

In Monday’s class, we’ll do some Unit 2 wrap-up, then launch into Unit 3—welcome to copy editing!

Extra Credit Opportunity:
CVILLEPEDIA EDIT-A-THON: UVA HISTORY EDITION
Monday, 3/20, from 6:30-7:45 p.m.
Monroe Hall
*free food
More Information at https://virginia.presence.io/event/cvillpedia-edit-a-thon.

2 points toward any major assignment where it helps you most (i.e., a 90 would become a 92).


For Wednesday, 3/22:

Download this conference paper and copy edit (using either Google Docs or Microsoft Word; your choice).

  • DO spend at least 1 hour but no more than 2 hours.

  • TURN ON TRACK CHANGES!

    • DO be sure to track your changes as you copy edit the Cheetham paper!

      • If you're in Google Docs, some background tracking is happening automatically, but change the setting to "suggesting" rather than "editing," so it's easier to see your changes on-screen.

      • If you're in Word, but sure to manually turn on "Track Changes" (image below). 

    • If you've already gotten pretty far in and didn't track, just turn on the settings and track from where you are. We'll discuss in class! :-D

    • Additional notes as I am clearly editing this document now myself (hence the notes as I think of things)—

      • You’re allowed, as the copy editor, to reach out to the in-house editor (that’s me for our purposes) and ask questions for clarification. Just FYI. (Ahem; the provided style guide does have some problems; it’s not you.)

      • FYI, I’m working in Word, not Docs. Word gives me a lot more control of the manuscript, and the track changes feature works better for such complicated collaboration (i.e., not just a small group of people working together, but a large team of people only sort of working together—ha).

      • In case you get confused—a house style guide always “outranks” Chicago, but if the house style guide doesn’t address something, use the Chicago Manual of Style (i.e., CMS, which is always available for free through the UVA Library—seventeenth edition, online). Fwiw, I did all the formatting first per their style guide, and then moved to actually editing the sentences using CMS.

  • Refer to this formatting guide for house layout.

  • Otherwise, refer to the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (online via the UVA Library).

  • Note: You can view past/published conference proceedings here.

Settings to “Track Changes” in Word:


For Friday, 3/24:

  • Read The Subversive Copy Editor, introduction and chapter 4.

  • Review your copy edits against mine.

    • Choose 3 items you notice us addressing (ideally, a mix of recurring and outlier items) and look up rules in CMS 17 to see why I made the changes I did. (Feel free to bring up if you think I’ve made a mistake!)

  • Feel free to access the in-progress Style Sheet for these conference proceedings.


For Monday, 3/27:

Tragically, class is cancelled. I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!


For Wednesday, 3/29:

  • For a second time, copy edit the Cheetham paper, this time using the Style Guide.

    • Feel free to work from your earlier edited draft or start from scratch, whichever makes more sense to you.

    • Spend at least 1 hour but no more than 90 minutes on this edit. Just stop wherever you run out of time.

  • I’ve made the Style Guide edit-able. As you edit, please add to that guide:

    • Queries if you don’t understand an item or want to suggest an alternative.

    • CMS rules that you needed to look up (or if you really hit a wall, an item for which you could not find a rule, so we can find and add it together)

  • Take 5-30 minutes (as needed) to complete this learning module, which will walk you through simple sentence diagramming.

    • Read carefully the definitions of the parts of speech and their relationships.

    • Pay attention to recurring patterns (by the end, I hope, the exercises will start to feel rote/predictable).

    • Bring questions to class. No questions are too simple/tedious!


For Friday, 3/31:

  • Take a picture of your attempted diagram of our sentence from class (see below) and upload the picture here.

    • “We prefer to picture our soldiers being shot at and killed rather than themselves killing Germans, even though, of course, a great deal of conscious killing did take place.”

  • Read The Subversive Copy Editor chapters 5 and 12 and come ready for discussion.

  • Write a brief reflection on your experiences with copy editing thus far. What do you find interesting and awful? What are you learning and where are you struggling to learn/practice?

    • Post your reflection to Collab.

In Class on Friday, 3/31:

Slides

Example


For Monday, 4/3:

  • If you haven’t yet uploaded your sentence diagram from Friday, please do so.

  • Read this excerpt from Lifespan of a Fact.

    • It might help you to read a bit about the book. Brief summary follows:

      • John D’Agata, essayist, wrote an article/essay/? called “What Happens There” for Harper’s Magazine, but they pulled it. He ended up placing it with The Believer, which was a big win for them, but also upped the pressure to please D’Agata—and his fact-checker (Jim Fingal) found a lot of errors/misrepresentations. They fought about it for about seven years before the piece was finally published in 2010.

      • In 2012, Norton (book publisher now) published the piece in book form with a lot of the notes back and forth between D’Agata and Fingal, as well as commentary, so readers could enter the debate. You’ve got the first pages from that book version.

      • This version is still a creative piece, as you’ll see; D’Agata and Fingal worked together on this draft, but they’ve recreated their own dialogue in ways that are engaging and also sort of weird? I’d rather see the written records, but ahem, those aren’t reproduced.

    • Also consider reading this article, which discusses some of the fact-v-fiction in the book itself.

  • On Monday, we’ll talk pick up with sentence diagrams, Subversive Copy Editor, and the concepts and practices of fact-checking.


    Sentence Diagram Gallery



For Wednesday, 4/5:

No prep needed!


In Class on Wednesday, 4/5:

  • Part I: Edit Samples Prep—

    • In your Unit 2 groups, select a 1-2 page excerpt from your assigned book. You may select the original or any one of your sub-edited drafts—whatever you think would be best for sending to the rest of the class for copy edit. Drop your group’s selection to this folder.

    • Individually, select 1-2 pages from your own Unit 1 submissions—whatever you’d be curious to see your peers copy edit. Drop your selection to this folder.

  • Part II: Style Sheets—

    *For both of the below, start with this template and then customize.

    • Working in your groups, draft a working Style Sheet for your pages to guide a medium to heavy copy edit. What should the copy editor(s) know/keep in mind?

    • Individually, create a working Style Sheet for your pages. Share your draft with your developmental editor(s) for input/revision, prior to sending the document out for copy edit.


For Friday, 4/7:

  • Be sure you’ve dropped your group and your individual writing samples for copy edit to their folders, along with your Style Sheets for each sample. Repeating the folder links here:

    • Group Sample and Style Sheet go here

    • Individual Sample and Style Sheet go here


In-class on Friday, 4/7:

  • Sign up for conferences

  • Start on copy edits

    • Individual Edits

      • Assigned texts are listed here; you can access your assigned files here.

      • Two people will copy edit each document. Please edit in the same document—

        • sign in to Google in a way that makes clear who did what

        • make edits on top of each other; make comments as needed when correcting each other/asking questions.

        • add notes to the Style Sheet as you go along

    • Group Edits

      • Harper Lee: Erin, Erin, Dana, and Avery

      • Stephen King: Julia, Susannah, Ahema, and Grace

      • Raymond Carver: Caroline, Christian, Emily, and Eleanor

      • Karen Hall: Eunu, Mahati, Nathan, and Thomas

      • All files are here

    • Quick reference sheet in progress


For Friday, 4/7:

  • Be sure you’ve dropped your group and your individual writing samples for copy edit to their folders, along with your Style Sheets for each sample. Repeating the folder links here:

    • Group Sample and Style Sheet go here

    • Individual Sample and Style Sheet go here

In Class on Wednesday, 4/5:

  • Part I: Edit Samples Prep—

    • In your Unit 2 groups, select a 1-2 page excerpt from your assigned book. You may select the original or any one of your sub-edited drafts—whatever you think would be best for sending to the rest of the class for copy edit. Drop your group’s selection to this folder.

    • Individually, select 1-2 pages from your own Unit 1 submissions—whatever you’d be curious to see your peers copy edit. Drop your selection to this folder.

  • Part II: Style Sheets—

    *For both of the below, start with this template and then customize.

    • Working in your groups, draft a working Style Sheet for your pages to guide a medium to heavy copy edit. What should the copy editor(s) know/keep in mind?

    • Individually, create a working Style Sheet for your pages. Share your draft with your developmental editor(s) for input/revision, prior to sending the document out for copy edit.

For Wednesday, 4/12:

In-Class on Wednesday, 4/12:

For the rest of the week (April 12-14):

For Monday, 4/17:

  • Post to this Google doc: What do you imagine being the purpose/audience of an “editorial philosophy”? What are some elements that you think should belong in such a document? (We’re collectively brainstorming here, for discussion on Monday.)

In-Class 4/17:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e3Z1xKnVYRtZNueHW01ymaQfvp0jjxk6jKry0LhHpG4/edit?usp=sharing

Drop your edits here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AcitWJvhHLMSKRaAYM9TjfyO7Q9_c7iB?usp=sharing

For Wednesday, 4/19:

  • Draft an individual editorial philosophy, with yourself as the audience.

    • 300-500 words(ish).

    • Speak to your approach to both:

      • the material text (the “physical” thing)

      • the social text (the people/situations involved)<—this section might include the smaller situation of editor-publisher-author or the larger situations of sociopolitical implications related to readership

    • Consider also:

      • What level are you jumping into and why?

      • How are you determining the social situation of the text?

      • What else do you need to add/revise about your own in-class editorial philosophy notes?


In-Class on Wednesday, 4/19:

Copy Editing Test “Answer Key” for discussion

Nathan’s copy edit

For Friday, 4/21:

Review these 3 additional copy edited pieces (with edits from some of you and from me) and note any questions/comments/ideas—we’ll start with discussing these:

I’ll get through as many more as I can by class time! <—which turned out to be none; I promise I have been in meetings, classes, or on work assignments nonstop; lesson learned! I have a backup plan for this section of your portfolio, which I’ll go over with you in Friday’s class.

For Monday, 4/24:

For Tuesday-Thursday, 4/25:

For Friday, 4/26:

If you are presenting, be sure to drop your slides or PDF to this folder in advance of class time.