August 11, 2015

SfEP Blog - Reference Editing Solutions for Copy-editors

Inera is hosting a workshop on Edifix at this year's SfEP/SI conference, and we've started the conversation on reference editing early by contributing a guest post to the SfEP Blog! We discuss some of the ups and downs of copy-editing bibliographic references and some time-saving tools like Edifix.

Here's an introductory excerpt:

We’ve all been there. Eager to get started on a new project, you open the first document only to find yourself staring at a long list of poorly prepared references. You are now charged with the task of scrubbing the reference items clean so that they conform to a style (Chicago, AMA, etc.), and you begrudgingly come to terms with the inevitable long days and nights of work ahead before you even begin working on the text itself. Fingers crossed that the reference editing will go smoothly, you pull out the required style manual, take a deep breath, hunker down, and get to work.

Although many of us use time-saving macros to programmatically and quickly address some of the more routine reference editing tasks (see, e.g., the helpful tools offered by Editorium), it doesn’t take long to do some simple maths and come to the conclusion that even at your best, you will perhaps spend more time on reference editing than anything else pertaining to the manuscript. Further to this, if you are being paid a flat fee for the project, your hourly rate decreases dramatically the more time you spend on reference editing. You may find yourself wondering: ‘Aren’t my skills and attention better spent on polishing the author’s writing and correcting for grammar, spelling, and usage errors?’ The answer is yes, yes they are.

Dr Robin Dunford, of Inera Inc., will host an Edifix workshop on Saturday 5 September, at the SfEP/SI first joint conference. Be sure to sit in on this session to see how Edifix can help you save time and increase both your editing accuracy and bottom line! Also, join us on the SfEP Twitter feed to discuss your approach to editing bibliographies:

1. Do your clients require that you perform fact checking to ensure the accuracy of reference/bibliography entries?
2. What are the most time-consuming and challenging tasks related to reference/bibliography editing that you encounter in your daily work?
3. What solutions have you developed or explored to ease the burdens of editing bibliographies?

You can read the full article here: SfEP Blog: Reference Editing Solutions for Copy-editors.