The Art of Copyediting Blog

This is a basic exposition of a new method of teaching the English language, evolved over a period of at least 25 years. So there’s a personal story behind this, which I’m presenting first (Part 1), to give you the gist of it. But then, there’s also the technical side...

I received a complimentary copy of Vivek Kumar's Discover the Editor in You—Copyediting as a Career just two days ago. I had written a chapter for the book.

For several personal and unrelated reasons, I’d never thought seriously about the book in the last two years. I...

Note

This is a piece written by Vandana Bhasin of Gurugram, who took up The Art of Copyediting's Foundational Skills for Employability and Earning training and mentoring program in November 2022. 

The Foundational Skills for Employability and Earning (FSEE)...

Not many people have a clear sense of purpose in life, which, when present, goads them to learn something every day, every week, every month, every year.

But for most people, learning itself does not happen on its own. It happens only when you consciously take that decision to learn. It...

Summary

A copyeditor in India faces almost insurmountable hurdles in learning the profession. I discuss these problems in detail and provide (a) a practical method of learning the basics via The Art of Copyediting group-learning plan (now affordable by everyone) and (b) an engaging,...

Note

This is a piece written by Dr. Mothi Paul of Tirunelveli, who took up The Art of Copyediting's Foundational Skills for Employability and Earning training and mentoring program recently. I'm publishing it here (along with my blogs) as Dr. Paul does not yet have a website of this...

Summary

This blog recommends a combination of standard Word shortcuts and a few basic macros (with recommended shortcut keys) to help a copyeditor navigate efficiently within a Word window and edit with a clear focus. This involves a one-time set up and may benefit both new and experienced...

A typical daily copyediting problem

A question that some students had asked me off and on came to my mind. It was about using (or omitting) a comma before the conjunction but. We all know that we'll have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. But to explain this I needed to have a bunch of...

Back in the days when I learned copyediting, we worked on hardcopy manuscripts, and the world itself was spinning at a rather much lower pace. We didn’t have any structured training; we were taught some titbits here and there, had some definite do’s and don’ts, some style points...

Most people who use a Windows desktop or laptop use the File Explorer (earlier called Windows Explorer) for file management simply because that's what comes inbuilt with Windows. Something comes with the PC and people use it for their day-to-day file management activities. Nothing wrong with...