Comments on: Copy Editing

By: Will copy editing be lost online? « Publishing to the Web

Will copy editing be lost online? « Publishing to the Web — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:30:54 +0000

[...] This post at Eat Sleep Publish, which discusses copy-editing disappearing out of the picture quicker than AOL, is scary to me. A snippet from the story: “[B]logging mogul Jason Calacanis of Weblogs, Inc. (and now Mahalo) once pointed out that he doesn’t fix typos on his blog posts because it helps convey the immediacy of his thoughts.” [...]

By: JohnB

JohnB — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:57:21 +0000

To err is human, but to leave uncorrected is just plain sloppy

Well said, @jope. I’ve noticed this annoying trend among top bloggers.

I do expect that the more professional writers and editors adopt blogging, the more we’ll see copy editors in this space.

By: Cool Links #50: It’s All Golden « TEACH J: For Teachers of Journalism And Media

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:42:41 +0000

[...] 13 – How important is copy editing in the world of fast news? Do some people care – yes. Does everyone care – no. Eat Sleep Publish says that probably less than half your readers care if your copy is 100 percent clean. [...]

By: Tyler Hurst

Tyler Hurst — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:15:08 +0000

I love that your posts seem like a young Seth Godin wrote them. Thanks for being on point, direct and readable.

By: Curt M.

Curt M. — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:06:33 +0000

One thing copy editors did in print was make things fit. That, of course, isn’t as necessary online.

I like clean copy. To me it says that you know what you’re doing, that you’re an adult, and it makes me more likely to trust the accuracy of the content. Good writers should care about spelling and grammar. The “immediacy of his thoughts” idea strikes me as pretentious and juvenile. Nobody’s thoughts are that immediate. Sounds more like laziness to me.

Lukoff is right: Editors also check facts and links. Good copy editors can prevent you from being sued. That, even more than spelling and grammar, is a good reason to have good editing.

By: jeanneleez

jeanneleez — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:31:56 +0000

Seriously, how long does it take to edit a blog post? To me, Calacanis is full of sh*t, and just lazy. Typos and poor grammar cheapen all bloggers and make us all look unprofessional. Spend the extra five minutes.

By: Benjamin Lukoff

Benjamin Lukoff — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:22:10 +0000

Copyediting seems to have become a choice a while back. I don’t know. I want clean copy. I don’t see how anyone can find it pretentious — one thing about clean copy is you shouldn’t notice it, and one thing that’s bad about typo-ridden copy is your eye gets stuck on all the mistakes. Then again, if you don’t know it’s a mistake…

Editors, though, also check facts (or they used to) and links (or they should). Hopefully people aren’t going to adopt the position that a post can be full of errors and bad links, otherwise it really is the end.

By: smfordo

smfordo — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:47:39 +0000

I can understand the “immediacy” of thought on some breaking news posts, and the lack of editing because of it. But if every post is marked by such inattention to basic communication skills employed by editing, then I would really start to question the soundness of such thoughts in the first place. Quick thinking doesn’t have to be sloppy communication.

By: Emily G

Emily G — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:58:22 +0000

Uh, I find it hard to see how you got from “Two places don’t bother to do A” to “Therefore, there is a segment of the population that finds A pretentious.”

By: jope

jope — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:35:09 +0000

If the need for immediacy demands that content be posted without first being proofread, I do think the raw version should at least be swapped for a proofed version later as time permits. To err is human, but to leave uncorrected is just plain sloppy.