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As a recent addition to the TEC team, with responsibility for marketing and communications, one of my first tasks has been to update and “tweak” TEC’s own website. Needless to say, for an editing company, the textual quality of our website is a particularly important demonstration of what we offer to do for others. In other words, we have to show off our editorial and communications skills. If...
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, my parents’ bookshelves held an incredible 27-volume set of Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedias. I would frequently rush to Funk & Wagnalls with my many questions, carefully selecting the correct volume and flipping anxiously through its pages, hoping desperately that the answer could be found there. And if it couldn’t, well, then, tough. Go to the library, why don’t you? Those bookshelves still display...
Read MoreSheila Heti was TEC’s second adopt-an-author at last September’s Word On The Street Festival. I enjoyed reading Sheila’s earlier works — a short story collection, The Middle Stories, and her first work of fiction, Ticknor — and I was eager to read her third book, a (mostly) fiction tale in which the character “Sheila” explores the title question, How Should A Person Be? This was a difficult read for me....
Read MoreHas this happened to you? You set up a coffee date with a friend for a Sunday afternoon, feeling quite certain the name of that particular coffee shop is Starbucks. You know the one? you say. Next to The Carrot Common? Sure, responds your friend. See you then. This is how it started. My friend and I finally found an hour that we could share together. I...
Read MoreAs an editor, I’ve spent countless hours working with lines and lines of text—it’s hard to think of editing as anything else. But there seems to be an emergent popular interest in a medium that I’ve personally loved for a long time: the graphic novel. As graphic works become more prevalent, there is a growing need for editors in a medium where words are only a small part...
Read MoreWriting / Writers Support Group
We have been editing and proofreading a number of manuscripts over the past few weeks that have made us here at TEC come to realize just how hard authors work. This is not to say that I haven’t realized this before—having been an editor for so many years now, I have worked with an amazing array of writers. And I have always been in awe of how they do...
Read MoreAn apology to our readers! We know we are late in posting a blog. In fact, we are seriously out of sync. We have reasons for falling so behind, and we have a new schedule in place to help keep us on top of our postings. You’ll be hearing from us more regularly in the coming months. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to...
Read MoreIn September, The Editing Company adopted two authors at the Word On The Street Festival, Sheila Heti and Richard B. Wright. As thanks for our sponsorship, we were generously given copies of each author’s latest book: Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? and Richard B. Wright’s Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard. After moving to our new office, I was finally able to sit down and finish...
Read MoreToday is our last day at 360 Bloor St. West, Suite 507. The Editing Company is moving on Monday, November 1, 2010. They say that with a new move, comes new opportunities. I believe that, because two years ago when we moved into 360 Bloor, we were just starting out as a company. Over the past two years, we have reinforced our existing networks while building new...
Read MoreLike so many of us, I watched the most remarkable rescue of the Chilean miners over the past few days. I am awed and inspired by this engineering feat and by the community – both locally and internationally – that came together to execute the plan. In addition to the engineering, there was the technology that brought the action to our computer and television screens. I would...
Read MoreGreetings from London, everyone! For the past eleven days I have been having quite a time exploring and learning about this amazing, historical, and culture-rich city. I've been all over, from Hyde Park to Greenwich, from Camden Town to Southbank, and so many places in between. It's been a whirlwind of a trip so far. All the while, I've been keeping my ears and eyes open for...
Read MoreAnother very busy and successful Word On The Street (WOTS) came and went in Toronto this past weekend on Sunday, September 26, 2010. The festival celebrating literacy and the written word is held yearly in Vancouver, Saskatoon, Toronto, Kitchener, and Halifax on the last Sunday in September. Toronto’s event included several stages and hundreds of vendors in the marketplace, and staff from TEC were there as well! Beth worked...
Read MoreIn my life outside of TEC, I also work as a sessional English instructor, meaning I am hired on a sessional (or semester by semester) basis to teach courses for which full-time (usually tenured) staff is not available. I’ve done this for a number of years and it’s a good way to add variety to my working life. I have taught upper- and lower-level genre courses at a well-established...
Read MoreAutumn is almost upon us and, as the seasons change, it’s always nice to reflect on what we’ve done and look ahead to the future. Camile Isaacs, our Assistant Manager and the newest member of TEC, has written two great blog entries for us – one on the art of proofreading as problem-solving, and another on the wonders of language through her experiences in raising her two-year-old son. We...
Read MoreAs an editor who works primarily for the Canadian market, I am amazed at all the subtle differences that separate Canadian and American English, and how difficult it can be to keep track of them. Even the work of seasoned Canadian authors often contains inconsistent spellings of certain words. In fact, some Canadian readers may be unaware of all the differences between American and Canadian English. First off,...
Read MoreIn last week’s blog, Camille mentioned her disdain for the use of the word “impact” as a verb. You’re definitely not in a one-person battle, Camille. I, and surely many others, wholeheartedly agree. I had an experience with this word several years ago while I was watching the Academy Awards ceremony. A young starlet approached the microphone to present the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. She...
Read MoreI have a 2-year-old son, and every day I find joy in the way he makes meaning of his world through words. Often I am just so pleased that he’s managed to express himself with words, rather than tantrums, that I don’t bother to try to turn his heartfelt statements into “proper English. ” I remember quite distinctly one of his first complete sentences. It was a dreary day...
Read MoreWriting / Writers Support Group
When a writer shows her/his work to someone and asks them to read it, there is the inevitable dread that she/he might hear those infamous words, “This is your first draft, right?” This phrase can be said in two distinct ways. If the person reading your work looks at you and grimaces as she says, “It’s your FIRST draft, RIGHT?” what she really saying is, “This is your first draft,...
Read MoreCrash blossoms: Headlines Gone Wrong Shealah Stratton What’s a crash blossom, you ask? Ben Zimmer wrote an article about the phenomenon in the Language Section of the New York Times in early January 2010. He provided an insightful look into the construction of newspaper article titles and how the removal of “little words” can result in a headline that is often cryptic, confusing, or humorous when it’s not meant to be. ...
Read MoreDuring my third year at university, the professor of one of my copy-editing courses began her first seminar by listing the names of several useful style guides. These were the books we were expected to get our hands on if we truly wanted to become well-read and informed editors. She, of course, mentioned every editor’s staples: The Chicago Manual of Style, the Canadian Press Stylebook, and the MLA...
Read MoreSeptember 2015 We are reposting this blog from 2010 because the issue of copyright is still relevant, and the research challenges we faced with our project that year is one that we have encountered several times since. At that time, we were clearing photo permissions for Blood, Sweat and Tears by David Cleighton-Thomas (Penguin 2011). Searching for the Photographers TEC permissions editors just spent several weeks trying to identify photographers of...
Read MoreI get excited about proofreading. I approach a project as I would a puzzle or a game. The challenge for me is to find as many errors as possible, much as one would find the words in a word-search puzzle. I get a kick out of finding typos and spelling that is applied inconsistently. Even though I’ve taken on a variety of different roles in my...
Read MoreWhen people ask what I do, it’s not uncommon for my response "I'm a copy editor" to elicit a blank or confused expression. Outside of the publishing world, the various roles that editors play (acquiring, managing, producing, and copy editing the written word) are often regarded as a big, mysterious mass. Many think that one person is involved in all the processes listed above. For this reason,...
Read MoreOn Saturday June 19, TEC editors Shealah, Nadine, and Jennifer Day (our on-call fiction editor) attended Fiction in the Age of e-Books, a debate presented by Luminato at the Isabel Bader Theatre. The moderator was Scott Stossel, the deputy editor of The Atlantic. He also sat on the panel as a representative of “the editor. ” The remaining panellists represented three other groups involved in fiction: ...
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