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This assignment was meant so the students could examine writing without our field/career choice. We were told to give an analysis of workplace writing, examine a piece of professional writing, then we could choose one of two things. The first choice was to give an example of workplace writing and analyze. The second choice was to give a professional article summary and critique.
Completed Assignment
To: Professor [redacted]
From: Ari Lentini
Date: October 18, 2019
Subject: Project #2
My intended career field is copyediting, which is why I decided to make that the main focus of this project. I am currently taking a copyediting course that required me to purchase The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz, so I will be analyzing a section of this book for the assignment. I have also done research on copyeditors to see what is required of them in the workplace and what they typically will be writing.
Analysis of Workplace Writing
If I pursue copyediting, I realize that I won’t be doing as much writing as other fields. The main job of a copyeditor is to fix mistakes in a written work, not to actually write the work. It will involve a lot of reading, rereading, and corrections typically on screen rather than on a hard copy of a written document. When copyeditors are required to write, it is typically writing to the author about queries or in the form of memos.[i]
Throughout my research
of copyediting, I realized that creating memos to the author servers a few functions.
One function that memos server for copyeditors is that they are a form of
checking in on the author and keeping them up to date on what’s going on. The
memo may mention that the copyeditor has to reread or update on the amount of
corrections made and what those corrections were. I also noticed that most
copyeditors in their memos included a bit of optimism to break up the requests
for revisions.
Memos in copyrighting also seem to function as a
way to keep track for the copyeditor themselves. For example, memos have dates
that the copyeditor can look back on to see when they completed reading through
something, when the author was notified about what was going on, and so forth.
There is also a different type of writing that some copyeditors may do which is
called a memo report, which is a memo that is longer than ten pages. One such
website I read discussed the creation of a design memo during their first
editing pass[ii].
Writing as a copyeditor will really only ever have one audience, which is the author
themselves. None of the copyeditors actual written words will ever be published
alongside the author because it is the author who wrote the work and not the
copyeditor. The copyeditor will only ever write queries and protentional fact
checks to the author so that they can make the corrections to the work.
Copyeditors are not allowed to rewrite sentences that “sound funny” or anything
of that nature so the writing is pretty limited.
With that said, the most important genre for copyediting would be memos. There
will be so many written to the author of a work that it’s important to have an
understanding of what a memo is, how to format it and what a memo should
accomplish. While having a basic understanding of writing emails and progress
reports would also be beneficial, the main genre that should be focused on is
memo creation because of how common it is. Being able to accurately create a
memo will also help the author to have an understanding of what to fix in a
written piece of work.
Example of Workplace Writing
The example of workplace
writing that I focused on was The Copyeditor’s Handbook, which I already
owned due to my professional editing course that I am taking this semester.
Considering that this textbook is over 450 pages long, I focused mainly on
chapter two because it gives a good overview to copyediting. I found that the
main purpose of this chapter, let alone the entire book itself, was to educate
those interested in copyediting. The textbook gives a fairly in-depth overview to
the world of copyediting and the basics of what any good copyeditor should have
an understanding of.
The function of this chapter was mainly to inform and to educate. The chapter
was also persuasive, especially in the skill set section. These weren’t necessarily
skills that you were required to have but the authors gave a good point as to
why you should have those skills. Persuasion was used by telling fact about how
technology was taking over pretty much everything and that having technology
skills for copyediting would be useful due to that fact.
This chapter had a lot of organization to it. For example, the suggested skills
were the first thing in the chapter because they were the most important things
to learn about. The middle of the chapter consists of an entire section about
on-screen editing because it correlates to the skills suggested for
copyediting. The end discussed manuscript cleanup, which was the least
important section of the chapter because, once you had the technology skills to
effectively use word, you would have already known how to do a manuscript
cleanup.
The tone for the chapter is very formal. There are no instances of sarcasm or
pop culture humor found within the chapter whatsoever. There are a few
instances of jargon but is cleared up through the use of footnotes and
parenthesis. It is formal, technical, and precisely to the point of the chapter
in all senses. It is fairly fast paced and easily understood.
This chapter tells me
quite a bit about my desired field in terms of writing. It contains a few
useful charts when it comes to hand-marked copyediting as well as examples for
on-screen copyediting. The chapter gives me some helpful suggestions in regards
to skills and when to query something within a manuscript as well. While part
one of this project focused more on what I would be required to write if I
become a copyeditor, this chapter focuses on how to actually copyedit which is
equally useful.
To conclude my memo, copyeditors have quite a lot required of them. They are
the main reason why a manuscript is published and how authors can make their
work the best it can possibly be. Focusing on creating memos will be very
beneficial to me as I start to apply for a copyediting position. Completing
this project has also given me a lot of insight as to what I should keep in
mind as I move forward in college, in my major, and hopefully my desired career
path.
[i] https://ugapress.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/the-challenges-of-typecoding/
[ii] http://deannahoak.com/2005/10/the-copyediting-process/
Ink and Crystals 