Wednesday 13 January 2010

Your crimes are noted.

Today, I have been working all day today, and am therefore officially brain dead.

The occasional job I do, mostly when I need to pay the library fines, milkman's bill, and the newspaper shop is threatening to push dogshit through the letterbox along with the Independent, is copy editing and type setting academic text for publication.

WAKE UP! You nodded off there, didn't you? The very thought of typesetting 1,400 references in 10.5pt Times Roman on 12pt leading simply made you feel drowsy, no?

I know the feeling. After ten hours of typesetting, both my bloodshot eyes resemble two large bowls of red wine.

I haven't even started on the italics or the symbol fonts yet.

But you academics out there. I know you're there. Now think, next time you're preparing that paper for print in your professional journal, and it's gone through all the review, and the editor's said that'll be no problem, just think, it could land on grittygrit's desk.

You have been warned. Make sure your references are complete and in style. Make sure your figures are properly labelled; your tables have captions; your examples, quotations and extracts are in order. And - because you wouldn't believe it possible, would you? - finish your sentences with a ruddy full stop.

1 comment:

emma said...

noted.

God, I hope I get you as my copy editor one day, but I always seem to land up with bespectacled nerds from Warrington.