The Copyeditor's Handbook and Workbook

Book excerpt: This set includes two essential resources for writers and editors: The Copyeditor's Handbook, now in its fourth edition, and The Copyeditor's Workbook, the new companion to the bestselling Handbook. Unstuffy, hip, and often funny, The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications has become an indispensable resource both for new editors and for experienced hands who want to refresh their skills and broaden their understanding of the craft of copyediting. This fourth edition incorporates the latest advice from language authorities, usage guides, and new editions of major style manuals, including The Chicago Manual of Style. It registers the tectonic shifts in twenty-first-century copyediting: preparing text for digital formats, using new technologies, addressing global audiences, complying with plain language mandates, ensuring accessibility, and serving self-publishing authors and authors writing in English as a second language. The new edition also adds an extensive annotated list of editorial tools and references and includes a bit of light entertainment for language lovers, such as a brief history of punctuation marks that didn't make the grade, the strange case of razbliuto, and a few Easter eggs awaiting discovery by keen-eyed readers. The Copyeditor's Workbook: Exercises and Tips for Honing Your Editorial Judgment--a new companion to the Handbook--offers comprehensive and practical training in the art of copyediting for both aspiring and experienced editors. More than forty exercises of increasing difficulty and length, covering a range of subject matter, enable you to advance in skill and confidence. Detailed answer keys and explanations offer a grounding in editorial basics, appropriate usage choices for different contexts and audiences, and advice on communicating effectively and professionally with authors and clients. Whether the exercises are undertaken alone or alongside the new edition of The Copyeditor's Handbook, they provide a thorough workout in the essential knowledge and skills required of contemporary editors.