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Communication/English 2433: Editing

Communication/English 2433 is a course in copyediting. Our focus here is on preparing a manuscript for publication; copyeditors have lots of jobs in this process, including

Making sure the manuscript is mechanically correct (all of those boring but necessary details of spelling, punctuation, and usage),
Taking care of problems in organization, logic, and level of detail
Making sure the language of the manuscript is coherent and consistent.

This course is crosslisted in both the Communication and English departments. That means that English majors can get English credit while Communication majors can get Communication credit. For more information on signing up for the "correct" version of Communication/English 2433, consult the COLFA advisors.

Copyediting

Copyeditors may also be involved in the actual production process, seeing the manuscript through all of the various stages of its journey into print.

In this course we'll examine all these details of the editing process, but we'll also touch on communicating and working with authors, determining, for example, when a change is necessary and when to accept the author's choice.

The Course

During the course of the semester you'll edit real manuscripts every week and a half, and you'll work on daily exercises and occasional quizzes, frequently in groups. Although sometimes I'll give you a brief lecture on an editing topic, we'll do more with class discussion to learn how typical readers react to manuscripts and editing changes.

By the end of the semester you should be able to edit a manuscript effectively, taking care of mechanical errors as well as more complex problems in style and usage.