Tag Archives: editing

Prime Yourself

There needs to be two of you: you and “you prime.” The latter is an heuristic entity brought into being by you for the purpose of protecting and orienting you. Your “you prime” makes the hard decisions – saying no to … Continue reading

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I wish I had written this.

Back in the day a journalist for the Norfolk Pilot newspaper got his copy back from his editor with this note: “Sorry it’s so short but a certain amount of muck, spleen, libel, hogwash, garbage, neologism, prurience, presumption, assumption, half-assumption, … Continue reading

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Editing for a civil society

Friend of No Contest Communications Chet Wisniewsiki, a principal research scientist at Sophos, woke me up with this short thread earlier this week:

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Happy to help

Twice in the last week I have helped to prevent a calamity from befalling a colleague. One colleague was irritated and the other was infuriated to receive my editorial help, though they each requested it. Both will come out “smelling … Continue reading

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Editors are there for you.

This note appears in Seymour Hersh’s Reporter: A Memoir.  The last seven words are utterly splendid. Here is a congenial interview with Hersh by Christian Lorentzen.

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Editing

The New York Times obituary of famed film editor Anne V. Coates is very charming. Ms. Coates vowed to find a way to make a career in cinema. She would need to overcome not only her family’s resistance but also … Continue reading

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More on editing

In an early NoContest.CA post on editing, I described “the 9 C’s” I use when evaluating another writer’s work: completeness conciseness clarity convincingness currency correctness consistency congruency courtesy I added: Almost all writers need a second set of eyes to assess … Continue reading

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Self-revision

It is hard to edit one’s own work into its final version; you always need a second pair of eyes. One can, though, review and recast one’s work using intelligent techniques. My former mentor NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen mentions two … Continue reading

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Tracking Online News

My new favourite website is NewsDiffs.org, which tracks and archives changes made to online news articles over time. Currently it follows nytimes.com, cnn.com, politico.com, washingtonpost.com, and bbc.co.uk; no Canadian publications yet, alas. Click on the image to see how a … Continue reading

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Writing and editing for the computer screen

Lawyer and language genius Bryan Garner over at LawProse.org spells out, in typically lucid fashion, how to compose documents when you know they will be read on a computer screen rather than on paper. 1.Summarize. It’s important to learn the … Continue reading

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