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Copyediting: A Practical Guide
Filled with sound, practical advice, this book is a must if you wish to become an effective copyeditor. Filled with sound, practical advice, this book is a must if you wish to become an effective copyeditor.
304 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1988
6 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
Karen Judd
6?books2?followersKaren Judd has been editing manager at McGraw Hill, production manager at Random House, and managing editor at Harper & Row, in addition to teaching copyediting at the University of California at Berkeley Extension, the Stanford Publishing Course, and Bookbuilders West. She has nurtured from typescript to print manuscripts as diverse as mystery novels, articles on multiple regression analysis, and calculus textbooks.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 17, 2011
This had some really useful information about the editing and publishing processes, but the number of typos (particularly in the answers to the editing exercises) was disappointing. Just because it's written by an editor doesn't mean you don't have to edit it!
December 31, 2007
Decent reference, though I have to question a book on copyediting that has TWO errors with the first 30 pages.
March 2, 2021
This is a great book for anyone interested in editing, copyediting, proofreading, or just working in publishing. If you already work in publishing it's going to have a lot of stuff you already know in it, but it has great reference sections that would be useful in any stage of your career. A good mix of information, reference, tips, and exercises. My only complaint is that it's a little outdated by now, as much of publishing work is done digitally and all of the tips and information assume everything is being done on paper. But, it covers many areas in the publishing world and is very well organized, and is overall a very good book for those in the publishing world.
January 8, 2018
A very good reference
October 28, 2021
Old-school, out-of-date advice.
July 15, 2014
This book has some good, basic information about the processes of copyediting, but it is deadly dull. I chose it for a course on magazine editing because it was slim and seemed concise, but my students just didn't read it because the examples were so dull and there were few insights. Will choose something else next time, but books on professional editing are all too rare these days.
August 29, 2015
Recently switched from working in-house to freelance copyediting and proofreading. Picked this up from the library to see if it's worth adding to my reference shelf at home. After reading it, I'm still not sure...I may pick up a used copy at some point.
August 13, 2016
Dated, with no discussion of editing on screen. I had to ignore the blanket instructions regarding style guidelines (e.g., always use serial comma, always space ellipses, etc.), because house styles differ. But it's never wrong to be exposed to the voice of another respected copyeditor.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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