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Track Changes Privacy Suggestion -- Make Date/Time Stamp Optio
Ah, yes, I have a very similar system...though I've just spent this evening
trying to pare my comments down to the basics, since apparently this author is kind of persnickety about her work. Hence the careful wording of Post-its, too (I'm definitely keeping THAT company in business, the way I go through them)... This one gets packed up tomorrow; then on to the next one! "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: Green works well for me because a lot of my authors make *their* corrections in red or blue. I tend to make my "changes not to be argued with" in the text, with an explanation (if I feel it's needed) in the margin. I use Post-its for "suggested" changes or queries. But the more I use computers, the harder it becomes for me to write much by hand (especially legibly), and I often go through several Post-its before I get the desired wording on a "suggestion." That's why a separate file of comments can be helpful, especially since you can make comments about "passim" sorts of problems, referencing page numbers of numerous occurrences of the same issue or drawing attention to conflicts between statements in two locations (whereas in the ms you'd have to write, "Detroit? Cf. p. x" and "Mobile? Cf. p. x."). I recently worked on a novel by a well-known and highly acclaimed novelist. I was typing the ms and wasn't supposed to make any changes at all, but aside from numerous routine corrections (for which I was predictably blasted, and they may well all be reversed), I submitted a separate eight-page file of comments on conflicts, solecisms, awkward phrasing, etc. I'll be interested to see what gets published. g -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "redpencilgirl" wrote in message ... Wow, I never knew that about the color red! I like green, but worry that it wouldn't show up all that well...and people seem to be pretty used to my red by now. A copy chief I worked for once had a great system I'd love to emulate someday: red pencil for changes not to be argued with (serious grammatical or punctuation issues, malapropisms, etc.) and blue for suggestions. Of course, she worked at a magazine where everyone had been trained to know what the colors meant -- as a freelancer, I'd have to attach an explanation to every returned manuscript! I still like my pencils and Post-its, I have to say...and while I do get the same urge you do to just go into the file and correct it, it's an itchy trigger finger I feel I am duty-bound to resist! Track Changes would probably keep me from making a lot of the comments I make now, simply because it's more of a process...and because I hate the look of a marked-up document! Though maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I fiddled with the color choices... Anyway, thanks for the commiseration and for the advice. Good luck with Mobile...I mean Detroit...I mean Chicago... :-) "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: I forgot to mention that the two aforementioned characters were gangsters from Detroit for half the book, then from Mobile for another half; then, because of problems with both, we decided to make them be from Chicago, but the author still keeps sending me stuff that says "Mobile." sigh As for markup, I do sort of a combination. I don't use red pencil, by the way, but green pen. In a previous life, I was a teacher (Latin), and I know that people react adversely to red (one student said it looked like her paper was hemorrhaging), and actually green (pencil) is traditional for editing. I do still mark up copy by hand sometimes, but the more I use computers, the more I find I keep itching to get to the file and correct it directly. In most cases, the result is what the client is concerned about, not how it was achieved, so I just make the changes, and they read the revised edition and (if I've done it right) think, "Wow! I'm a better writer than I realized." I used to write a lot of comments on the manuscript, either directly on it or on Post-its, but now I often make a separate comments file. I don't really like Track Changes because most of the people I work with are unsophisticated (many of them elderly) and wouldn't know how to deal with the technology (even for comments). So far I've had no one specifically request it, and I don't suggest it. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "redpencilgirl" wrote in message ... OK, now you've succeeded in really making me laugh...first because you DO know exactly what I'm talking about, and second because I am so glad the manuscript I'm working on isn't in THAT much trouble! You would have been amused by the stunned look on my face the first time a production editor said to me, "Well, actually, by the time it comes to you, the editor is finished with it." Meanwhile there I am wondering how on earth this author got a book contract...and whether or not the editor actually read past page three before sending it off to the freelance copy editor... Out of curiosity, do you do most of your editing using Track Changes, or are you still on pencil and paper too? (The reason all of this has come up for me is that one client is interested in making the switch. I've never worked on a huge project using Track Changes, so it'll be a new experience for me.) "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: I'm sorry, but you are describing exactly the kind of work I do, and I can't see that a client would have any reason to care *when* you make the changes provided the required changes get made. I make numerous passes through the documents I work on, and I find more mistakes every time. No one can see everything at once, and I don't think anyone expects you to. Most instructions I've read actually stipulate that you make several passes. And I have to say that I read a lot of published books where there is no evidence that any editor made even one pass, much less several. I recently proofread the page proofs of a book to be published by Random House (which had been copyedited and proofread by their editors), and the author (for whom I was performing the work) and I were equally appalled by the number of errors I found. I wouldn't care how many times the editor had to read the ms or backtrack in it provided the errors were corrected. FWIW, it's also true that the more corrections there are to be made, the more passes it's going to take. You just can't see everything at once. And a lot of things you aren't going to know are "errors" till much later. In the book I'm currently working on, there are stupefyingly thorough bios of two of the characters early on; neither mentions any military service (or allows any space in the timeline for it). Several chapters later, they're talking about their army experiences in Iraq. Another character, a nurse, is shy on one page and bold on the next (she actually vacillates throughout the book). Those are just a few of the problems. As it happens, I've about given up on this book, which the author is self-publishing; I finally decided I'd done all I could reasonably do, and if the author thinks it's done, I'll just call it done. I don't think he'll sell more than a couple of dozen copies no matter how much we polish it, anyway. g -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "redpencilgirl" wrote in message ... Without giving actual examples, it's hard to give you an idea of what I mean here, so let's say that the author of a manuscript I'm editing creates a character named Frank. He's Frank from page 1 to page 72, but on page 73, he suddenly becomes Fred. Only I'm sort of distracted by the author's annoying habit of putting three exclamation points at the end of every sentence, so I don't notice that he's Fred until page 175. So now I go back to page 73 (having searched for "Fred" and discovered that that was where the name first appeared). Anyone looking at my changes will be able to see that I made the Fred/Frank change three days (or however long it has been) after the other changes -- deleting of exclamation points, suggestions about ambiguous language, grammar corrections -- made on the same page. And while my imperfect eye is something I should be aware of (because being aware of it will make me a better editor), it is NOT something I need to show my clients...or that, really, they have any need to know. Does that make it any clearer why this is so important to me? "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: FWIW, your clients don't have to know when you have changed your mind: just reject the change. Or accept it, turn Track Changes off and change it back, then turn Track Changes on again. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "redpencilgirl" wrote in message ... In Word 2002 for Windows XP (and apparently in other newer versions of Word as well), rolling the mouse over a Track Changes balloon turns up the name of the person who made the change or comment, along with the date and time the change or comment was made. Currently I can choose the privacy option "Remove personal information from file properties on save" and have my name replaced with the anonymous term "author" -- however, I cannot opt to remove |
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