Guide to Author Comments & Queries
As noted in the preceding c/e docs, in cases where a fix is clear and simple, you can simply enforce a change; if there’s any doubt about the author’s intended meaning or the adequacy of a simple fix, it’s best to leave a comment in the margin to point the author’s attention to the edit for review (usually a simple “OK?” works best).
In more complex or nuanced cases, you’ll need to provide more substantial comments to justify your edits, explain the issue you see in the text, ask for clarification, and/or suggest a specific rephrasing or rewrite. This can be difficult at first since you are, of course, writing directly to established scholars in the field to explain the flaws in their essays. It’s useful to keep the following insights and principles in mind as you craft your comments:
- Be confident; you are the expert. Many, if not most, of the scholars whose writing you’re editing have less experience in editing, especially copyediting, than you do. Follow RC House Style, the style manuals, and your own eye/intuition, and ask confidently for what the essay needs. Never apologize.
- Be courteous. Temper your confidence with politeness. Words like “consider,” “please,” “note,” “seems,” etc., can go a long way in softening the message you need to convey. You’ll find that sometimes scholars are (surprisingly) bad, sloppy writers. Be patient. Stay kind.
- Be specific. If you point out a vague issue or merely ask for a rewrite of a sentence without providing specific guidance, most authors will simply ignore your comment. Instead, provide as much specific guidance as you can, including but not limited to:
- citing specific CMOS sections;
- providing specific grammatical markers (e.g., “the pronoun has no clear antecedent; please resupply the noun or clarify in some way”);
- providing specific rewrite suggestions in your comments;
- linking online examples, especially for fact checks or citation errors; etc.
- Be efficient. Keep your comments as short as possible while still being as specific as you can. The more long-winded your comments get, the less likely authors will be to take them seriously.
- Be personable. Think about and intentionally cultivate your copyediting “voice.” Walk the line between being overly formal/sterile and too familiar. Ideally you’ll come off as a knowledgeable expert in English grammar, publishing conventions, style guidelines, and academic writing who communicates with enviable lucidity and laser-like precision—and someone whose name each author will remember.
- Know that you’re appreciated. 99 times out of 100, the authors whose prose you’re cleaning up will be extremely grateful. If you do this enough, you’ll get messages from authors thanking you for your work. Be meticulous and unsparing, knowing that your careful eye is necessary—and that at the end of the day, you’re making these scholars look good.
Achieving the right balance between unsparing technocrat and friendly reader takes a lot of practice. As you wade into copyediting your first few volumes, you might find the following comment templates useful toward this end (they’re pulled from actual essays copyedited by RC staff). Adapt and use them.
- “OK?” // “Consider __.” // “Revise as appropriate.” // “Please __ to ensure __.”
- “Per CMOS __, I’ve enforced ____.”
- “Note that this sentence/phrase [is/does/implies] ___. Consider rephrasing for clarity.”
- “___ does not have an entry in the Works Cited; please provide a full citation to this work.” // “____ is not cited in the text. Please cite or remove from WC list.”
- “Consider recasting to avoid passive voice. E.g., ‘____.’”
- “Revision OK? To ensure readers can/don’t ___.”
- “Serial comma enforced; correct (i.e., all items on this list are parallel)?”
- “Please provide [a parenthetical citation at the end of this sentence].”
- “A quick search turned up __. Strongly consider incorporating/changing/etc. ___ to account for ____.”
- “Readers may __. Consider recasting the sentence for clarity; e.g., ‘__.’”
- “This edit seems to me to ____. OK? Or revise as appropriate.”
- “To my eye, this phrase/sentence/paragraph would be more effective if ___. Consider __.”
- “Ideally this [word/phrase/paragraph/idea] would __. Revise to __, or let me know __.”
- “Consider clarifying this thought; it’s unclear how ___.”
- “RC House Style calls for __, but this is an unusual case. I recommend __, but what’s vital is maintaining consistency in usage. Also consider that ___. At the end of the day, this one’s up to you; let me know what you want to go with.”
- “Interesting. I wonder if you’ve also considered ____, which might add nuance to your argument. Here’s [link]. Revise, if appropriate.”
- “Other contributors to this volume have __. Consider revising to ____.”
- “Elsewhere on the RC site we have an edition of this text. OK to add a link?”
- “Note that MLA/CMOS citation logic requires all sources listed here [in WC] to be cited within the text; see below for entries that can be removed. Alternately, two ideas: (1) you could create endnotes within the essay to point readers to these auxiliary works, in which case the WC entries could remain as-is; or (2) RC house style will accommodate a separate “Works Consulted” list, which could be created to contain these works (though I’ll note that this option might have limited utility here).”
And so on. It may also be helpful to review the copyedits of previous volumes, which can be found in the “_COMPLETED” folder of the Production Sync drive.