Ode to an editor

Copy editors receive little praise. They mostly get noticed when they don't do a perfect job. This piece, therefore, made me smile and say thanks. In What My Copy Editor Taught Me, author Dorothy Gallagher recounts learning how to read sentences and how to make her words count. The essay appeared in today's New York Times Book Review. Here's a passage that gets to the heart of what I think good editors ought to do:

Helene had no literary theories — she had literary values. She valued clarity and transparency. She had nothing against style, if it didn’t distract from the material. Her blue pencil struck at redundancy, at confusion, at authorial vanity, at the wrong and the false word, at the unearned conclusion. She loved good writing, therefore she loved the reader: good writing did not cause the reader to stumble over meaning.

Happy National Comma Day

Did I miss the proclamation of National Comma Day? In this morning's news writing class, I discussed the use of commas after cities and states. When I returned to my office after class, I opened an e-mail from a Boston reader who had a question about that very subject. Coincidence? You decide.

Here's the conundrum. Read the following sentences aloud, and see if you need a comma:

• John is a Weston, Conn., native.
• Mr. Smith, the former Greeley, Colo., city manager, has a flower shop.
• Jane Jones has opened an office in Milford, Conn., representing clients in appeals cases.

If you said yes, you're a comma guru. Now try these:

• The Nov. 1, 2005, event went off without a hitch.
• He arrived on Nov. 1, 2005, and immediately began working at the firm.

Yes again. You are so smart!

The Associated Press Stylebook addresses these points in entries titled "state names" and "years," but it does not include the reasons behind the rules. George T. Arnold cites the same rule in the "Media Writer's Handbook: A Guide to Common Writing & Editing Problems," but like the AP, he provides no reasoning.

I tell my students that commas are necessary in each case because what follows modifies the preceding word or phrase. For instance, "Conn." explains where Weston is located, and "2005" describes the year in which the date occurred. If you take out the year or the state name, you do not need a comma. So the following would be correct:

• John is a Weston native.
• Mr. Smith, the former Greeley city manager, has a flower shop.
• The Nov. 1 event went off without a hitch.
• He arrived on Nov. 1 and immediately began working at the firm.

The only example from above that does not follow this rule is the Jane Jones sentence. The sentence simply wouldn't make sense without the comma, even without the state name. I'd change it to the following:

• Jane Jones has opened an office in Milford, where she represents clients in appeals cases.

Remember, commas are our friends. They come in handy when you want readers to pause. The best way I know of figuring out if a comma is needed is to read the sentence aloud. If I pause, I need a comma. If your ear doesn't catch the pause, for whatever reason, you might want to invest in a grammar and usage guide. At UNC, we require all journalism and mass communications majors to buy Arnold's book. The AP Stylebook features a thorough punctuation guide. Both are must-haves for all future journalists.

Austria ... home of Olympic heroes

What qualifies one to be a radio DJ? Was driving home from work today and flipping through channels, as I am forced to do because my 1998 Honda Civic has neither satellite radio, CD player nor MP-3 capability. (And by the way, there's no AC.)

Anyway, whilst flipping, I came upon a couple of nincompoops prattling about the Olympics. These would-be news junkies, who "work" for some FM station in the Denver area, were discussing the medal count. First, the male voice boasted of the USA's medal haul, correctly divining that we'd won the most. Then he read the rest of the top five medal-winning countries. He claimed that "Austria" was fifth with 38 medals.

Close. Austria won three medals -- one silver and two bronze -- and was tied for 41st. The Austrians won medals for swimming, kayaking and judo. What the DJ meant to say was "Australia," the only country that's also a continent. The Aussies had 38 -- 11 gold, 13 silver and 14 bronze. Australians took home 20 medals in swimming alone. If I knew name of the station, I'd send these numbskulls an atlas and an almanac.

First thing tomorrow, I'm going to the library to get some books on tape. Maybe a history of Australia. Or a shorter work on Austrian Olympic heroes.

Add "editing" to my list of worries

John Tierney of The New York Times recently wrote an article titled "10 things to scratch from your worry list." What has me worried is how this column got past the copy desk -- it's full of half-truths and misused statistics. Daniel Luzer of Mother Jones picks Tierney's column apart piece by piece. Although Tierney supplied some of the facts, he left out some key particulars that might have yielded a more helpful column. This story wasn't written on deadline, so the desk certainly had time to check the facts. Even more disturbing is the fact that Tierney's piece was in the Science section, which should be full of editors who understand how to decipher scientific studies. I wonder if this is a common problem at The Times or an anomaly.

It's important for journalists to interpret research so the reader can understand it. That sometimes means turning academic gobbledygook into English. It also means putting the statistics into context. What does the science mean to the average reader? To do this well, you have to understand the basics of scientific research. Was the study conducted properly? If you don't know what to look for, you can't help readers very much. If you're like many journalists and have an aversion to math, check out Robert Niles' guide to common statistical terms. It's a good introduction.

Remember, if you don't understand something, your readers might not, either. If you're unsure, ask. Better to be embarrassed in private than to get something ridiculously wrong in the mass media.

That is so ... nevermind

This sounds too good to be true. A Christian news site's policy to change the word "gay" to "homosexual" led to an error of Olympic proportion when track star Tyson Gay became "Tyson Homosexual." Think he's heard that one before? Read this story by Washington Post blogger Mary Ann Akers and you too may laugh like a 12-year-old.

Reminds me of a story I heard from a prof at North Carolina. He told of an editor who routinely searched every article for the word "pubic" and replaced it with "public" to avoid embarrassing spelling mistakes. One story involved a police investigation. The published story included a reference to a "public" hair found at the scene.

Both of these stories should serve as reminders that editors must actually READ the articles they profess to edit. And that some rules are made to be broken.

Are you (AP) stylin' yet?

When I was in graduate school, one of the first classes I taught was introductory news writing. My syllabus required students to buy the latest edition of the Associated Press Stylebook. I still require this in all my editing and writing courses. One of my best students in that long-ago class, who happened to be the daughter of a professor at the J-school, brought in her dad's 20-year-old copy of the book. I told her she -- or her father -- had to fork over the money for a newer version. As I remember, she earned the only A in the class. And I do mean earned.

I didn't share this story to make fun of the student or the professor, who is a great teacher and a respected historian, but rather to remind readers that the AP Stylebook is a living document. Language changes. These days, it seems like new words and phrases are popping up every day. It's up to journalists to keep up with the times. But doing so can be a daunting task for individual news organizations. That's one of the reasons the AP Stylebook is so important.

Each year, the editors at the AP cut things that have become unnecessary, update those that have changed, and add those that are needed. It usually takes a couple of years for the AP to decide whether new words and phrases are worthy of inclusion. In the meantime, it's up to individual editors to make those decisions. The point is to be accurate and consistent.

This year's version of the Stylebook has more than 200 new entries, including "iPhone," "wild card" and "outsourcing." The online version also contains a new section on food.

Among the entries discarded are "WAC," "malarkey" and "barmaid." I've used only one of these words in my 39-year existence. But the next time I'm sipping a cold one at the VFW, and a woman introduces herself as a former WAC, I'll ask the barmaid to pour her one on me. Then I'll whip out my iPhone, check the standings and see how many games my team needs to win in order to clinch a wild card berth. Actually, I don't have an iPhone yet, but as long as the University of Northern Colorado doesn't outsource my job in the next year, I'll have one soon. And that's no malarkey.

The new Stylebook is a steal at $11.75 for member news organizations, $11.75 for college bookstores and $18.95 retail.

Whether you're a student, a professional journalist or a word lover, order yours today by visiting the Associated Press Bookstore. And if you think this book -- or its online version -- is just for print journalists. AP members create and use news in print, audio, video, photo and graphic formats.

And here's some cool info for history geeks like me: The first edition of the AP Stylebook was published in 1953 and ran 62 pages. The 2008 edition features more than 300 pages. For more on the new edition and the history of the book, read the AP's press release.

Call Mumbai and find out where that story is

Just found out that The Orange County Register will outsource some of its copy editing duties to the Indian firm Mindworks Global Media.

According to a story in Editor & Publisher, the move will not affect staffing at the Register. Maybe not, but I can't imagine it not affecting morale.

This reminds me of the moves most radio stations have made in the last few years. A 2007 study by University of Colorado professor Lee Hood found that stations that once produced their own news reports now rely on news that's patched together in far-off cities. According to a University of Colorado news release, Hood said:

"News is how people learn what it means to live in 'this place.' And to have somebody who may not even have been in your community ostensibly deciding what's news in your community, well, I think that's alarming."

I can't help but agree. Now, back to the OC Register. Editing is much more than punctuation, grammar and AP style. Being a competent editor means understanding the community in which you work. How could someone in India know what's important to people in Southern California? A good editor needs to know the not just the names, but also the story behind prominent people, places and institutions. What's next? Letters to the editor being answered by a representative in Calcutta?

I'm curious what readers think.