The hubs blogs about our book project:
Slightly Off the Mark: Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: The proof is here...: The proof copy of Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights is in! Here’s a photo Emily shot just after we got it: Just a few more minor corrections and we're ready for first printing!
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Oh look, an update!
Well, what can I say - it's been a while!
My medical issues have been getting progressively more complicated; fortunately, I believe I'm now in the hands of a good team of doctors, as we seem to be making progress. Mark and I have delayed our wedding ceremony to be on the safe side. My college graduation has also been postponed.
But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Amidst the various medical-related things I've been doing, I've also been working on writing and editing projects. I've drafted several new poems, revised some earlier ones, and started putting them together into chapbooks. I'm slowly catching up on all the reading I've had to put off in lieu of textbooks and other assigned reading.
And I've been working diligently on Mark's fire history book, which is now in the last proofing stage. Once we get the print copy proof next week, we'll know if we need one more round of changes or if it's ready to go to print! Once ready, it'll be available at the Albion Fire Department's 125th anniversary celebration. For a sneak peak and more info, check out his website.
As for this blog, I plan to begin blogging fairly frequently. I will be including personal things, especially those things relating to my various illnesses. It should help me to talk about it and keep a better record, but I decided to make it publicly viewable in case anyone can benefit from it. I'll keep using tags so those who want to skip to certain types of posts can do so.
My medical issues have been getting progressively more complicated; fortunately, I believe I'm now in the hands of a good team of doctors, as we seem to be making progress. Mark and I have delayed our wedding ceremony to be on the safe side. My college graduation has also been postponed.
But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Amidst the various medical-related things I've been doing, I've also been working on writing and editing projects. I've drafted several new poems, revised some earlier ones, and started putting them together into chapbooks. I'm slowly catching up on all the reading I've had to put off in lieu of textbooks and other assigned reading.
And I've been working diligently on Mark's fire history book, which is now in the last proofing stage. Once we get the print copy proof next week, we'll know if we need one more round of changes or if it's ready to go to print! Once ready, it'll be available at the Albion Fire Department's 125th anniversary celebration. For a sneak peak and more info, check out his website.
As for this blog, I plan to begin blogging fairly frequently. I will be including personal things, especially those things relating to my various illnesses. It should help me to talk about it and keep a better record, but I decided to make it publicly viewable in case anyone can benefit from it. I'll keep using tags so those who want to skip to certain types of posts can do so.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Editing Webtext
Editing webtext is like editing poetry. Space is essential, so every word has to hold its own and be the best choice.
Kilian makes some fair points and has some nice lists in chapter five of Writing for the Web. I'll share some pointers of my own.
To edit your text, move it into a new word processing document. Swap the font out and mess with the layout. Then let it sit. Don't look at or think about it for a while, and it'll be fresh and new when you come back to it (and see all your mistakes!). Kilian suggests printing it out, double spacing, increasing the font size, and changing the font. However, I don't see a reason to have to retype all those changes and waste paper. Then again, I grew up using computers so I'm more comfortable editing on screens.
A large section of the chapter lists abbreviations and terms for web writing. My advice: if you have to look it up, don't use it. If English is your second language, check out resources online or get a hard copy text to refer to. This is a nice start and easy skim list, but I'm not really sure how useful it is in the long run. Depending on your major and the purpose of your website, most of the stuff on this list you'll never run into - and you could easily do a websearch for it if you did.
Kilian also gives some advice that can be boiled down to the following: don't be an offensive jerk, don't ramble on with unnecessary junk, watch out for confusion from dialect/terminology if you have a global audience, and hyphenate to avoid confusion if you must.
Just don't sacrifice your style for the sake of appealing to a larger audience. Most websites get little traffic. Find your niche and write what your fans want. If you get famous, then you can think about appealing to huge audiences... but realistically, you probably won't get so much traffic that you have to worry about it. Just be an accessible, not-outrageously-offensive version of yourself.
Kilian makes some fair points and has some nice lists in chapter five of Writing for the Web. I'll share some pointers of my own.
To edit your text, move it into a new word processing document. Swap the font out and mess with the layout. Then let it sit. Don't look at or think about it for a while, and it'll be fresh and new when you come back to it (and see all your mistakes!). Kilian suggests printing it out, double spacing, increasing the font size, and changing the font. However, I don't see a reason to have to retype all those changes and waste paper. Then again, I grew up using computers so I'm more comfortable editing on screens.
A large section of the chapter lists abbreviations and terms for web writing. My advice: if you have to look it up, don't use it. If English is your second language, check out resources online or get a hard copy text to refer to. This is a nice start and easy skim list, but I'm not really sure how useful it is in the long run. Depending on your major and the purpose of your website, most of the stuff on this list you'll never run into - and you could easily do a websearch for it if you did.
Kilian also gives some advice that can be boiled down to the following: don't be an offensive jerk, don't ramble on with unnecessary junk, watch out for confusion from dialect/terminology if you have a global audience, and hyphenate to avoid confusion if you must.
Just don't sacrifice your style for the sake of appealing to a larger audience. Most websites get little traffic. Find your niche and write what your fans want. If you get famous, then you can think about appealing to huge audiences... but realistically, you probably won't get so much traffic that you have to worry about it. Just be an accessible, not-outrageously-offensive version of yourself.
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