Readings and Resources for English 711, Editing



General readings on editing and copy editing 


And Other Assorted Readings on Editing


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Editors and Writers Together 


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Here's a sample paper on working with a writer


First Amendment 


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Headline and Cutline Tips 


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Design and Redesign (work in progress on these links) 


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A Bibliography for Editors 

  • The Art of Literary Publishing by Bill Henderson. Pushcart Press, 1995. Editors of books and journals talk about their craft.
  • The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law. Available in many versions, paperbound or spiral bound, in nearly every bookstore. The stylebook used by the world's largest newsgathering organization as well as many other media outlets. A separate Associated Press Guide to Punctuation by Rene Jack Cappon is also available (Perseus Publishing, 2003).
  • The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. University of Chicago Press, 1993. The stylebook used in much of book and magazine publishing.
  • Coaching Writers: Editors and Reporters Working Together by Roy Peter Clark and Don Fry of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. St. Martin's Press, 1992.
  • Contemporary Editing by Cecilia Friend, Don Challenger and Katherine C. McAdams. NTC/Contemporary, 2000. Textbook.
  • The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook by Barbara G. Ellis. Perseus Publishing, 2001.
  • Copyediting: A Practical Guide by Karen Judd. William Kaufmann Inc, 1982. A how-to book on everything from grammar to typemarking.
  • The Copy Editor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications by Amy Einsohn. University of California Press, 2000. Especially useful to anyone contemplating freelance editing.
  • Developing Online Content: The Principles of Writing and Editing for the Web by Irene Hammerich and Claire Harrison. Wiley, 2001.
  • Editing Fact and Fiction: A Concise Guide to Book Editing by Richard Marek, Leslie T. Sharpe, and Irene Gunther. Cambridge University Press 1994.
  • Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know about What Editors Do. Gerald Gross, ed. Grove Press, 1993 (3rd edition). Editors who work in a wide variety of environments, from small presses to romance novels, talk about theory and practice.
  • The Effective Editor: How to lead your staff to better writing and better teamwork by Foster Davis and Karen Dunlap of the Poynter Institute. Bonus Books, 2000. Very specific to newspaper editing.
  • Handbook for Proofreading by Laura Killen Anderson. NTC Business Books, 1990.
  • Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them by Bill Walsh. McGraw Hill, 2000. Walsh, chief copy editor in the business section of the Washington Post, starts the book this way: "I've written a stylebook that I hope makes the following point: Be skeptical of stylebooks." His newer book along the same lines is The Elephants of Style (McGraw Hill 2004).
  • The Layers of Magazine Editing by Michael Robert Evans. Columbia University Press, 2004. Starts with big topics like audience, mission, and tone, and works its way by layers to smaller questions of grammar and punctuation. Thoughts from more than 60 magazine editors.
  • Line by Line: How to Improve Your Own Writing by Claire Kehrwald Cook. Houghton Mifflin/Modern Language Association, 1985. Clear, concise advice on everything from punctuation to wordiness.
  • Magazine Editing for Professionals by J.T.W. Hubbard. Syracuse University Press, 1989.
  • The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage by Allan M. Siegal. Three Rivers Press, 2002. They humbly call it The Official Style Guide Used by the Writers and Editors of the World's Most Authoritative Newspaper
  • Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. Harper Resources, 1994. Compact lessons on how to prepare a manuscript for publication.
  • Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams. Addison-Wesley, 1997 (5th edition). A beautifully written book about cohesion, elegance, and other hard-to-address writing issues.
  • Words Into Type, 3rd edition. Based on studies by Marjorie Skillin, Robert Gay, and others. Prentice Hall, 1974. The definitive work on how a manuscript becomes a book


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Editors groups and resources (most of these sites include good links) 


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Grammar and Language Sites 


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Editing QUIZZES and Exercises (some of the sites above contain exercises as well) 

 

 

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