Copy-Editing Skills
Dates:
LONDON 22-24 March, 5-7 May, 2-4 June, 26-28 July, 23-25 August, 29 Sept-1 Oct, 18-20 October, 17-19 November, 13-15 December 2010 OXFORD 20-22 September 2010 (a three-day course)
Price:
£764+VAT (a number of discounts are available)
Venue:
The Publishing Training Centre in Wandsworth, London (see a map and a list of local hotels). This course is also occasionally held at the Said Business School in Oxford (see above for Oxford dates - a map will be enclosed with the joining instructions).
Book course online or phone +44 (0)20 8874 2718 for availability
"Very much so (I enjoyed the course). In fact, it's the best course I’ve ever been on. Enjoyable but also very useful to me. I do think I’ll be better at my job as a result!"
Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office delegate
"I thought Andrew was BRILLIANT. Good humoured, smart, articulate and funny (which I think is very important on a 3-day copy-editing course!). I’ll definitely recommend that the management send all editors on this course."
Usbourne Publishing delegate
The Publishing Training Centre’s flagship course, Copy-Editing Skills, was the first course ever offered, then called Editorial 1, 30 years ago! More delegates go through this editors’ rite of passage annually, than any other PTC course.
It’s had many upgrades and revisions since then, but the simple essence of its success – thorough learning through a series of paper-based exercises with an experienced practitioner – has remained the same. Of course, many of the copy-editor’s decisions will today be effected fully or partly on screen, but we ensure that editors are confident in ‘what’ needs to be done and ‘why’ first. The ‘how’ follows on from that. Many delegates go on to take Editing in Word once they have acquired a good copy-editor’s mindset and are more confident editors.
Copy-Editing Skills focuses on 20 key activities including:
- marking-up copy with thorough practice in using the BSi standard marks for copy preparation
- italics
- quotation marks
- editing notes and bibliographies
- editing and keying in figures.
The majority of exercises focus on one particular skill, but incorporate other incidental errors, mimicking real life. The final day’s consolidation exercises bring together all the learning and show delegates how far they’ve come in a short time and how much their confidence has increased.
There is a pool of seven very experienced editors who teach this course. Crucially, each is currently working as a copy-editor, either for a major publisher or as a freelancer. They bring a wealth of experience to the course, and are up to date on the latest trends and issues in the industry.
There are no correct answers in copy-editing, but delegates will come away with three exercises marked-up by an experienced editor, a full set of exercises used throughout the course and handouts on key areas such as copyright, terminology and notes and references.Extensive notes are provided during the course and after the course delegates have three months’ access to additional online materials and exercises on the PTC website.
This course is a broad springboard onto many of The Publishing Training Centre’s well known editorial offerings, including Editing in Word, Editing Scientific, Technical and Medical Texts, Editing Illustrated Books, Rewriting Workshop, Grappling with Grammar and Managing Editorial Freelances.
If you’re not working in a publishing environment – in its broadest sense – you might like to look at Editing Skills for Non-Publishers.
Programme
- Proofreading
- Ensure difference between proofreading and copy-editing is fully understood
- Marking up copy for keyboarder/ designer
- Using BSi international symbols correctly
- Mark up headings and code different types of material
- Checking contents
- Focus on consistency
- Other matter that might be expected in a particular book
- Editing prelims
- Editing tables
- Changing text to another format
- Changing text to a list, table or other alternatives
- Formatting and consistency
- Editing and keying in figures
- Importance of checking visual as well as verbal material for accuracy, consistency and clarity
- Using quotation marks
- Italics
- Different uses of italics: taxonomic classification; citation of legal cases; foreign words
- Importance of house style
- Numbers and numerals
- Conventions and house style
- Editing specialist texts
- Issues about editing poetry, drama, technical instructions and specialist areas
- Copyfitting
- Wider issues when cutting text: even workings; numbering prelims in Roman numerals; stages of production; balancing columns; overall appearance; positioning and size of illustrations, and costs and effects of different types of alteration.
- Editing notes, references and bibliographies
- Editing indexes
Free book for every delegate
Delegates attending the Copy-Editing Skills course will each receive a copy of Barbara Horn's book Copy-Editing. This is an invaluable reference and contains many exercises with model answers.
Online training
This course includes online training and support. Please note that the online area is currently being updated and will be unavailable until the update is complete.
Who will benefit from this course?
Editorial Assistants, Copy-editors, Assistant Editors, Desk Editors and Production Editors.
Your tutor
Each course is led by one of a team of seven editorial and publishing experts.
We also offer Copy-Editing by Distance Learning.
Note that most of our open courses can also be run as in-company events.
Send details of this course to a colleague.
Dates: LONDON 22-24 March, 5-7 May, 2-4 June, 26-28 July, 23-25 August, 29 Sept-1 Oct, 18-20 October, 17-19 November, 13-15 December 2010 OXFORD 20-22 September 2010
Price: £764+VAT (a number of discounts are available).
Copy-Editing Skills - provisional booking form
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