COPYEDITING MARKS: Getting Started

Editorial marks are a sort of shorthand that has evolved over time. These marks are not universal, but they're nearly so. They save the editor untold hours of writing detailed instructions. Nonetheless, if you don't use the marks clearly and correctly, your work can generate needless revisions, raise costs, and cause annoyance. Clear, professional-looking marks also impress authors and help lend cre- dence to the editor's suggestions. Further, no keyboarder should have to make a "best guess" at what an editorial mark means. These days, it's easy to make changes and produce another printout, but it's also easy to forget that each additional iteration costs time and money. In the publishing world both are usually in short supply. The marks that follow are standard for editors. Some organizations use slightly different ones for particular purposes. If your office uses variants, by all means conform, but keep in mind that someone else (an "outside" author or keyboarder, for instance) may not understand your notation. Editors and proofreaders use the same marks, but use them differently. Edi- tors mark in the text line, because the keyboarders need to read every line as they work. Proofreaders, working at a later stage in the editorial process, mark in the margin, so the keyboarder making corrections need only run an eye down the margin to see what to do.

Delete one character, several letters, or a whole word with a looped cancel Delete mark (7'), which supposedly evolved from a medieval a. (for delendo— get rid of). If you want to delete an entire passage, box it in and draw an X through it.

Delete this letter. Delete this letter.

Delete this we-WWord. Delete this word.

To close up space entirely, use this mark (C), often called close-up hooks. Close up

tooth paste toothpaste

tooth brush toothbrush 1/4..40

SUBSTANCE & STYLE 15

Using only the top half of the mark means to decrease the space, or to leave a word space, or to take out any extra space, depending on the context.

Now is the time. Now is the time.

Delete and When you combine the delete symbol with the close-up hooks, you get a close up mark that looks like this: ,357, . Use it when you want to delete a letter in the middle of a word or at the end of a word, just before a punctuation mark.

NoW is the tie. Now is the time.

Now is the timey. Now is the time.

Insert When you want to insert a letter or a phrase, use a caret ( A ). Always place your insertions above the line, and always place the caret precisely where you want the insertion to be. - Now is the time for men Now is the time for all good men

A brace ( under the insertion helps direct the eye to the proper place.

Now ime Now is the time A for all good men for all good men

If you're inserting a letter at the beginning or end of a word, you must use close-up hooks as well. To some people this practice seems superfluous, but without the hooks it's often impossible to tell where such insertions belong in very heavily edited copy. For example, what did the editor intend here, fields or snow?

field Snow A The use of close-up hooks would have told you. Sl field how field snow

field-now fields now A If you want to add space rather than a word, use a caret and a space mark ( ). Some editors draw a line to separate the two words rather than using the symbol:

Inse r5es pace Insert space

Inserthpace Insert space

16 CHAPTER 3: COPYEDITING MARKS

A slash through a capital letter means that the letter should be lowercase. If Lowercase you wish to lowercase several letters in a row, you can use a slash with a "hat" on it.

Xowercase lowercase

..C17ATER-C-A-FE lowercase

To make a lowercase letter or word uppercase, put three lines under the let- Capitals ters to be changed.

capital Capital = all caps ALL CAPS •Sr- -c."-irr Small caps are capital letters that are only as big as lowercase letters; they're Small caps often used for acronyms, such as VISTA, or combined with regular capitals for names in signature lines. To mark for small caps, use two lines under the words or letters.

ROBERT E. BROWN Robert aE. Brown Robert E. Brown ROBERT E. BROWN 5 a a ..= Some people choose two lines to indicate regular caps, but such usage isn't standard.

The underline symbol ( ) is used to signify both italics and under- Italics score. To differentiate between the two forms, write the instruction (ital or score) in a circle in the margin. Keyboarders know not to enter or "set" any- thing circled in the margin. Circle all instructions, specifications, or que- ries, so that no one will put them into the text by mistake.

The Sound and the Fury The Sound and the Fury

To remove italics, put a series of hatch marks through the line, or put a delete mark at the end. The latter, however, is very easy to miss in heavily edited copy.

rSTIIDYP,i'lliff remove italics

SUBSTANCE & STYLE 17

Boldface To indicate boldface, use a wavy line (AA...) and to remove it, use hatch marks or write and circle , which means lightface.

Boldface Boldface

Remove boldface Remove boldface

Transpose The transposition mark looks like this: VI . You can use it to transpose both letters and words.

TrOspose Transpose

\words Transpos Transpose words

You can also transpose around something that you've left untouched, although it's often better to rewrite the words. Be sure to keep transpositions easy to read and don't make transpositions within transpositions. Kollooldlyinwhere no man has gone 4* boldly ,ft where no man has gone

To boldly go where no man has gone

Replace To mark for replacement, slash through the incorrect letter and put its replacement above the line. To replace an entire word, cross it out and write the correction above it to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding.

slish slash spia.66 splash

Spellout/Usethe If you want to use the complete word instead of an abbreviation, circle the

other form abbreviation. Circling also indicates that you want the other form. seven

Company

GM General Motors

18 CHAPTER 3: COPYEDITING MARKS

Note that the circle works both ways:

6even) 7 Company Co.

General Motors) GM

If the circled text results in an ambiguous instruction, write out what you want. For instance, does Calif. become CA or California? Is GM General Motors or Gen- eral Mills? Is VA Virginia or the Veterans Administration? In none of these cases will your keyboarder know what to do (except perhaps from context, and good operators generally see words, not context).

A symbol called the pilcrow ( 47 ) is used to denote the beginning of a Paragraph paragraph. This sign, which dates back to Middle English, is univer- sally understood. Some editors use a sign that looks like an L ( L.. ) to mark a paragraph break, but this mark is too often lost in heavily edited copy and therefore is used less often.

Q Need a new paragraph L LT eed a new paragraph

Conversely, if you don't want a paragraph where one already exists, then Run on you mark to run on (c) ). You can use the same symbol to mark the end of a considerable deletion as well.

We were told to John Brown, Manager ...c) speak to John Brown

He is Assistant r o t Manager

the Bethesda branch

To move material to an adjacent line, brace or circle the passage and show Transfer with an arrow where you want it to go.

Be sure your marks and instructions are clear and accurate when you want to move material d' nt o another. Brace or circle material to be move.

SUBSTANCE & STYLE 19

Box material to be moved to a different position on the same page and run an arrow to the new position.

Move this line down. Copy marked this way is easily read by the word (processing staff.

If you want to move material to another page, say from page 3 to page 4, follow this procedure: On page 3, circle the material to be moved, label it In- sert A, and draw an arrow pointing toward the right-hand margin. In a circle, write Move to page 4. On page 4, draw an arrow from the left margin to the place of insertion and write in a circle, Insert A from page 3.

r bas: Li e ter dye ie jth.e t .nof tat Ltnie• d4d died,4dod 1 al kind--- 4 a tmo we &peel 42.. 1.1001 dtliked 2 Y431'4448 ens...... -.... 44 er or a 2o Transfer to d If a menus 4 S':444-i:41,, %51"3': type 4ma- . . 1211 de t dash. .4;24;00 477 144 Be sure your marks and i"t • Ito-dashe s accord whether the hd22 ine2 to move material from one plan y. hyphen ie :::4.44ted Part of the Strd moved to an adjacent line. 44 444 or"4 40t and 4f 11444' Y4 to mark the To move materiel to an If 4 hlphen ePpears onlY because a 2ine U produces *i/2 4444 Yon 442st mark this .soft. hyphen for deletion. show with an arrow where la euch odditlee ae .Me 2ack fantl-infllation). than too short for the stole mord. hyphen), P542ure Box material to be ao that it Yen w122 Musta 2no-rtne. mark If the Wordto eise3V, de/ete the hypheo an arrow to the new pos Zn the be carried over into later ha :hen add the hyphen to stay (a s firet case. you mark a 2ine ( 2 to to 'hard' Move this line RegardIees Iterations. to de/ete and Make the 'misting t and of Which kind of I If you want to misunderst genera.12y advisab2ehyphen appearshyPhen into theae editor' ( 2; in s the aecond. andi follow this proced ng. mark. You at the end of a Ilne, Insert A, and dr to mark 5/2 hyphens that might cause you must smrk circle, write

to the place o

Superior/In

A cha

footnote re

20 CHAPTER 3: COPYEDITING MARKS A character that goes above the line (superscript), as in a formula or foot- Superior/Inferior note reference, is marked this way: V . characters

footnotV footnote1

A character that should go below the line (subscript) is marked this way:A .

H20

A comma is marked this way: ) . The caret makes the mark stand out on Punctuation the page and indicates that it goes below the line. marks The period looks like a bull's-eye:0 . Without the circle, the period can be mistaken for a random dot on the page. The semicolon and the colon can also have carets, f_although some editors use the marks alone, 3 or circle them J. Apostrophes and quotation marks arie placed in upside-down carets to indicate their placement above the line: V and v . Question marks and exclamation points use the traditional handwritten symbols? and: . The hyphen looks like an equal sign::: . This is the traditional mark, although a single line is used as well. Dashes are of two sorts and are marked this way: .Z; and e-7.7 . Em-dashes are the traditional kind: two hyphens if a software code isn't used or a long typeset line ( — ). Unless we specifically say en-dash, we mean em-dash. En-dashes will be discussed in chapter 10. If a manuscript has words hyphenated at the ends of lines, you'll need to decide whether the hyphen is part of the word or not and mark the hyphen accordingly. If a hyphen appears only because a line is too short for the whole word, you must mark this "soft" hyphen for deletion. Failure to delete the hyphen produces such oddities as "We lack a quo-rum." If the word always has a hyphen (anti-inflation), then you must mark it to stay (a "hard" hyphen), so that it'll be carried over into later iterations. In the first case, you mark to delete and close ( ); in the second, you add a line ( - ) to make the existing hyphen into the editor's mark. Regardless of which kind of hyphen appears at the end of a line, you must mark it, and it's generally advisable to mark all hyphens that might cause misunderstanding. (Marking hyphens is discussed further in chapter 4.)

SUBSTANCE & STYLE 21 He opened the toothr paste tube.

You should install child- proof locks on these doors.

Here is an example of each of these punctuation symbols correctly marked by an editor. comma Yes A

period he said°

semicolon I was latel\ therefore I lost.

colon We will discuss the fol- lowing

hyphen tamper :proof seal

apostrophe Mind your P s and Q s .

quotation marks NJ Go, Vhe said.

question mark Did you say that ?

exclamation point Down .

em-dash The brothers—Manny,44 and Moe-

en-dash 1939711945

Stet Finally, if you edit in nd later discover that you've made a mistake, you use the stet symbol ( Vet ), which means to ignore the correction and let the original stand. (Stet comes from Latin and means let it stand.) To stet a word, put a series of dots under it and write the word stet in a circle next to what you want to keep.

Little Bo Peep has lost her ...... stmise

22 CHAPTER 3: COPYEDITING MARKS Sometimes an editor must indicate where material should appear on the Placement page or in a table. If you want a line to begin at the left margin (flush left), notations you use this mark: C. If you want the line to be moved to the right margin (flush right), you use this mark: 1. If a head, for example, should be centered, you put the two marks together like thi0 C . Another way to ask that material be centered is to use this symbol:

Copyediting ]

C Date

J Chapter 1C-

To align, or make margins or columns even, you use two parallel lines. But be sure to say in a marginal notation how you want the column or the passage aligned if it isn't obvious. (For example, write "align on the decimal" and circle the instruction.)

1 . 1

1.2

French

It ian

G an

SUBSTANCE & STYLE 23 To indent, you can use the pilcrow (41 ) or a small box to indicate a 1-em space (a space that's the same size as the capital letter M). In the old days of movable type, an em-space or em-quad was a standard measurement; although the standard has been replaced, the notation remains. Here are ex- amples of each of these marks. 41 In the beginning ElIn the beginning

24 CHAPTER 3: COPYEDITING MARKS