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Copyediting: A Practical Guide | 
| Author: Karen Judd
Publisher: Crisp Learning
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $24.45
You Save: $0.50 (2%)
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 293577
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 328
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 1560526084
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.027
EAN: 9781560526087
Publication Date: August 13, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
"Every item intended for reading should be copyedited," says Karen Judd: books and periodicals, of course, but also appliance instructions and menus. Strange, then, that Judd's Copyediting is one of the few resources on the subject, but no matter. It's a terrific guidebook. Judd takes on all aspects of copyediting with startling authority, from copyediting symbols to advice on getting work. Intervening chapters cover punctuation and grammar, spelling, style and word usage, numbers and abbreviations, specialized copyediting, proofreading, and more. "Copyeditors ... know that Massachusetts is a commonwealth, not a state," says Judd. "They would know exactly how to address the pope if they met him. They don't mind going back over 1,000 manuscript pages because they have just decided to spell out numbers up to 100 after all." While they need not be good spellers or trivia buffs, they need to know when to look up a word or fact. And, though copyeditors tend to be stringent about the uses and abuses of language, "Copyediting means doing what the publisher wants, whether you agree with it or not." --Jane Steinberg
Product Description
Filled with sound, practical advice, this book is a must if you wish to become an effective copyeditor. In addition to being a comprehensive guide to the real world of copyediting and publishing, sections on diction and style answer practical questions not addressed in other copyediting books.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Nuts and Bolts April 27, 2000
96 out of 97 found this review helpful
This is a great nuts and bolts volume for the beginning copyeditor. Judd covers nearly everything you need to learn. She follows Chicago Manual of Style fairly closely and when she doesn't, she tells you. This book also includes exercises to allow you to polish your skills. One of the most useful I have read on this topic.
 Could have been the best, but... March 25, 2006
48 out of 50 found this review helpful
Karen Judd's "Copyediting: A Practical Guide" is one of the few books on this topic. Any help in this area is appreciated, and Judd's guide is extremely handy.
Pros:
1. Her examples are excellent, unlike some other grammar and punctuation guides. Got a strange sentence construction? Her examples will cover it. Not sure if that appositive needs commas or not? Judd gives the correct answer.
2. Methodical. The book delineates the technical aspects of copyediting well.
3. Covers proofreading techniques and notations not found in style and grammar manuals.
4. The trade paper size of the book makes it far less cumbersome than others that include workbook training. Judd's workbook questions are just as easily managed in the smaller format.
5. The price is right.
Cons:
1. This is an enormous con: There are enough errors in the book to confuse readers. Judd sometimes lays out a rule, but then the example is wrong. (A few other reviewers noted this, too.) In a book on copyediting, you'd expect perfect copy! Needs a revision badly.
2. While the copyediting and proofreading marks are extensive, there are not enough variants listed. Some publishing houses require marks that aren't here. I'm no expert like Judd is, but I've seen far more mark variants in my copyediting experience than she covers.
3. This book is "plain brown wrapper" and could use a layout freshening. Almost too dull to look at.
4. Some of the proofing marks are not crisply printed. As a suggestion, this book would benefit greatly from a two-color printing process that makes the marks stand out from the text more effectively.
5. The paper used in the book's construction is cheap, possibly leading to durability issues over the long run. For a true reference work, this is a shame.
Could have been the best value out there in a copyediting reference, but there are enough cons to relegate it to being merely good. A new edition would be excellent, but one doesn't appear to be on the horizon any time soon. Too bad for us.
Detailed, hands-on, in a manageable size February 26, 2002
28 out of 28 found this review helpful
This is, indeed, a practical, information-packed guide, with lots of exercises, answer keys, and checklists. It doesn't go over every point of grammar--you can get that from your other reference books--but it does tell you most of what there is to know about pen-and-paper copyediting.The book shows its age whenever computers are mentioned; Judd's comments on these magical machines are amusing and entertaining, but not very useful. I found it worthwhile, but if you edit online or on disk, this may not be the best book for you.
 Very helpful, despite errors January 6, 2005
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
I'm just beginning to consider a career in copyediting; this book is one of several that I ordered so that I might gain an understanding of the discipline. Perhaps it's just the edition I have (after all, no one else has mentioned this), but there are several errors (copyediting errors or compositing errors) throughout the book. I'm not talking about stylistic errors--the writing is just fine. For example, in a few of the exercises, the text in the answers differs from the text in the exercise (the text should be identical in both, since the exercise only involves using copyediting symbols, etc.) I can imagine that it would be difficult keeping straight the 'example' edits and the actual edits, but I just found it a little ironic. Most of the errors were small (e.g., the first word of a title is missing an underline), but they stood out more than they would in a novel, due to the nature of the text.
Most Dictionaries Don't Have the Word "Copyediting"... January 23, 2004
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
As the back cover of the book explains, the word "copyediting" doesn't appear in most dictionaries. And it is both an art and science to be able to capably copyedit writing. So why is it almost unknown, both literally and figuratively?Well, as a friend of the author says, "...I see my job as making my work invisible." Copyediting is the art and science of preparing written work for publication. The copyeditor will check for any and all types of errors that might be found in text, including making sure the facts stated are correct. If the copyeditor has done his or her job correctly, you'll never realize they were there. It's a tough discipline and it requires exactly that-discipline. This book does an excellent job of covering the ins-and-outs of copyediting, making it a valuable tool for writers and editors alike. Anyone who writes for a living or hopes to do so wuold do well to read this book.
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