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"I've never read anything like The Subversive Copy Editor. Its pages illuminate the humanity and the love of language and form that transmute a manuscript into a book." - Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English and The Write Way
"It's no surprise that the droll and (seemingly) all-knowing wizard behind the Chicago Style Q&A puts it all together - entertainingly - for manuscript editors in this real-world guide to job success and survival. The surprise is how urgent it is for every author, client, and boss who works with editors to embrace Saller's 'subversiveness' - or suffer the next outcome from hell." - Arthur Plotnik, author of The Elements of Editing and Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style"
"It's no surprise that the droll and (seemingly) all-knowing wizard behind the Chicago Style Q&A puts it all together - entertainingly - for manuscript editors in this real-world guide to job success and survival. The surprise is how urgent it is for every author, client, and boss who works with editors to embrace Saller's 'subversiveness' - or suffer the next outcome from hell." - Arthur Plotnik, author of The Elements of Editing and Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style"
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Each year readers submit over three thousand grammar and style questions to the Q&A page at "The Chicago Manual of Style Online". Some are arcane, some simply hilarious - and one editor, Carol Fisher Saller, reads every single one. All too often she notes a classic author-editor standoff over the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of prose styling: 'This author is giving me a fit'. 'I wish that I could just DEMAND the use of the serial comma'. 'My author wants his preface at the end of the book. This seems ridiculous. I mean, it's not a post-face'. In "The Subversive Copy Editor", Saller suggests new strategies for keeping the peace. Emphasizing carefulness, transparency, and flexibility, she shows copy editors how to build trust and cooperation. One chapter takes on the difficult author; another speaks to writers directly. Throughout, the focus is on serving the reader, even if it means breaking 'rules' along the way. Saller's own foibles and misadventures provide ample material: 'I mess up all the time', she confesses. 'It's how I know things'. Copy editors, Saller acknowledges, also make trouble for themselves (does any other book have an index entry that says 'terrorists. See copy editors'?). The book includes helpful sections on e-mail etiquette, work-flow management, and organizing computer files. Saller's emphasis on negotiation and flexibility will surprise many copy editors who have absorbed, along with the dos and don'ts of their stylebooks, an attitude that their way is the right way. In encouraging copy editors to banish their ignorance and disorganization, insecurities and compulsions, the Chicago Q&A presents itself as a kind of alter ego to the comparatively staid Manual of Style. In "The Subversive Copy Editor", Saller continues her mission with audacity and good humor.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is mainly for professional (and free-lance) copy editors, and it explains in some detail, and with some humor, some of the common work-related issues facing such professionals. There is a chapter for authors but, for the most part, I didn't find it to be terribly useful. The chapter about word processing had a few useful ideas, but it didn't really enlighten me to any great extent. As an editor of a scholarly journal and as a teacher of graduate writing courses for neophyte scholars, I had hoped the book might have been of more use to me (e.g., in copy editing authors' and students' manuscripts), particuarly as regards the Chicago Style Manual. I did learn a few things, but not as much as I had hoped. One insight, though, was particularly interesting: the author's approach is that copy editing does not have mainly in mind protecting the publisher, the scholarly field, or even the author but of addressing the audience's need for clarity, accuracy, and consistency. That focus and a certain pragmatism--taking into serious consideration individual circumstances and particulars, as opposed to a slavish following of rules--seem to be the "subversive" of the title. The book is well-written, short, an easy read, and inexpensive; so it might be worth looking into. But it really is not a 'how to' book and anyone wanting that kind of information should look for other titles that cover copy editing techniques, skills, etc., in more detail.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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18 reviews
44 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Teach Yourself the Craft of Editing
3 Jun 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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Reviewed by C.J.Singh
While teaching courses in editing at UC Berkeley extension, I always assigned The Chicago Manual of Style and Richard Lanham's Revising Prose (5th Edition) for the introductory course. For the advanced course, we studied Joseph Williams's Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (ninth edition) . As noted in my detailed reviews of the two latter books, most students found them excellent. I'm sure they'd be just as enthusiastic about "The Subversive Editor" by Carol Fisher Saller. In fact, I'd place this book near the top of the reading list for anyone interested in learning how to edit. Saller, a senior mansucript editor at the University of Chicago Press, also edits "The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A." Written with charming wit, her brief book presents numerous tips. For several samples from the book, please read on.
Introducing her book, Saller writes: "Although people outside the Press address us `Dear style goddesses' and assume we are experts on everything in the `Manual,' most of the time I feel more like the pathetic little person behind the curtain in `The Wizard of Oz.' It's only because I'm surrounded and protected by knowledgeable and generous coworkers that I can assemble the authoritative front that appears in the Q&A" (p. xi).
From the Q&A: "Q/ Oh, English-language gurus, is it ever proper to put a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in formal writing?" (p. 31). "A/ In formal writing, we allow a question mark and an exclamation only in the event that the author was being physically assaulted while writing. Otherwise, no" (p. 43).
On serial commas: "A/ Well, if you don't allow the serial comma at all, you will be stuck with situations like the following hypothetical dedication page that our managing editor likes to cite: 'With gratitude to my parents, Mother Teresa and the pope'" (p. 70).
Know Thy Word Processor: "Q/ Is there an accepted practice for use of emoticons that include an opening or closing parenthesis as the final token within a set of parentheses?" (p. 71). "A/ Until academic standards decline enough to accommodate the use of emoticons. I'm afraid CMOS is unlikely to treat their styling . . . But I kind of like that double-chin effect" (p. 79). Included in the above chapter is a footnote: "Hilary Powers has written a gem of a guide, 'Making Word Work for You: An Editor's Intro to a Tool of the Trade.' You can download it inexpensively at...." (p. 72). I did. Thanks.
On Associated Press Stylebook: "Minimizing word count must be another goal for newspapers: have you noticed their avoidance of 'that' even when it's needed? 'They maintained the house for years was a haven for crackheads.' It drives me crazy" (p. 28).
Saller's use of "subversive" in the title is a bit of a teaser. And she knows it: "Editor's first loyalty is to the audience of the work you're editing: that is, the reader. . . . Common sense tells us that working on behalf of the reader is not really a terribly subversive move" (p. 4).
To learn the basics of the editing craft, I recommend: reading Constance Hale's "Sin and Syntax" for a review of grmmar basics; doing the exercises in a self-teaching book such as Amy Einsohn's "The Copyeditor's Handbook"; and, perusing regularly "The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A," edited by Saller. -- C J Singh
Reviewed by C.J.Singh
While teaching courses in editing at UC Berkeley extension, I always assigned The Chicago Manual of Style and Richard Lanham's Revising Prose (5th Edition) for the introductory course. For the advanced course, we studied Joseph Williams's Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (ninth edition) . As noted in my detailed reviews of the two latter books, most students found them excellent. I'm sure they'd be just as enthusiastic about "The Subversive Editor" by Carol Fisher Saller. In fact, I'd place this book near the top of the reading list for anyone interested in learning how to edit. Saller, a senior mansucript editor at the University of Chicago Press, also edits "The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A." Written with charming wit, her brief book presents numerous tips. For several samples from the book, please read on.
Introducing her book, Saller writes: "Although people outside the Press address us `Dear style goddesses' and assume we are experts on everything in the `Manual,' most of the time I feel more like the pathetic little person behind the curtain in `The Wizard of Oz.' It's only because I'm surrounded and protected by knowledgeable and generous coworkers that I can assemble the authoritative front that appears in the Q&A" (p. xi).
From the Q&A: "Q/ Oh, English-language gurus, is it ever proper to put a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in formal writing?" (p. 31). "A/ In formal writing, we allow a question mark and an exclamation only in the event that the author was being physically assaulted while writing. Otherwise, no" (p. 43).
On serial commas: "A/ Well, if you don't allow the serial comma at all, you will be stuck with situations like the following hypothetical dedication page that our managing editor likes to cite: 'With gratitude to my parents, Mother Teresa and the pope'" (p. 70).
Know Thy Word Processor: "Q/ Is there an accepted practice for use of emoticons that include an opening or closing parenthesis as the final token within a set of parentheses?" (p. 71). "A/ Until academic standards decline enough to accommodate the use of emoticons. I'm afraid CMOS is unlikely to treat their styling . . . But I kind of like that double-chin effect" (p. 79). Included in the above chapter is a footnote: "Hilary Powers has written a gem of a guide, 'Making Word Work for You: An Editor's Intro to a Tool of the Trade.' You can download it inexpensively at...." (p. 72). I did. Thanks.
On Associated Press Stylebook: "Minimizing word count must be another goal for newspapers: have you noticed their avoidance of 'that' even when it's needed? 'They maintained the house for years was a haven for crackheads.' It drives me crazy" (p. 28).
Saller's use of "subversive" in the title is a bit of a teaser. And she knows it: "Editor's first loyalty is to the audience of the work you're editing: that is, the reader. . . . Common sense tells us that working on behalf of the reader is not really a terribly subversive move" (p. 4).
To learn the basics of the editing craft, I recommend: reading Constance Hale's "Sin and Syntax" for a review of grmmar basics; doing the exercises in a self-teaching book such as Amy Einsohn's "The Copyeditor's Handbook"; and, perusing regularly "The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A," edited by Saller. -- C J Singh
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Witty, humane, real-world advice
20 April 2009
Format:Hardcover
I'm a manuscript editor at a university press and I can't say enough good things about this book. I've long enjoyed Ms. Saller's clever answers in the Q&A section on the Chicago Manual of Style website, so I was predisposed to think well of her, but this book just cemented my respect and admiration. Her advice to editors (and to writers) ranges, for me, from the "I can't believe I never thought of that" variety to the "I have thought of that, but could never have said it so well" variety. This book should be required reading for anybody who is in the business of transforming unpolished words in a manuscript into type on a page.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
It's like finding out your mother smokes!
2 Nov 2009
Format:Paperback
Editors break rules. How liberating! Carol Fisher Saller's "Subversive Copy Editor" confirms what I learned as a scientist: The more you know about a subject, the less dogmatic your opinions. Rules can be broken; editors do make stupid mistakes. Saller brings great common sense and, yes, sharp business acumen to her profession. The book reminds you that if an author--consistently--has styled his 985 references in a totally nonstandard, but logical style, what's the point in undoing all the painstaking work? Having enjoyed this "Chicago Manual of Style" editor's online Q&A page for years, I loved reading more about the crazy questions she gets about editing (and sometimes other topics, like fashion, when someone mistook "The Chicago Manual of Style" for a fashion advice book) and the clearheaded, sometimes funny answer she gives. But beyond her approach to editing and her invaluable hints on how to stay organized as an editor, the book includes invaluable lessons in modern business etiquette: ways to work with difficult co-workers and authors, the importance of answering e-mail promptly, even if you don't know the answer; how to defer a decision; the importance of keeping the big picture (in this field, the big picture is the reader and book sales); rules of etiquette not only in your own e-mails but especially with how you handle others' messages; and so on. The book can be read from front to back, almost like a novel (well, I am an editor, so perhaps I found it especially compelling), and Saller's self-deprecatory humor had me laughing out loud. Editors, writers, students, and businesspeople who handle any sort of communications will enjoy this book.
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