back to books Re: doublets / langue / traffic

[Carol]

> > >Annemehr,
wondering whether a text full of jargon (New Age or otherwise) poses
editing difficulties for a non-adept

Carol responded:
> <snip>
> > It all depends on the context of the jargon term, the purpose of
the book, and the intended audience. Thank goodness for the Internet,
though, since standard dictionaries seldom tell me what I need to  know!
> 
Annemehr:
> Still, it sounds like a lot of extra work -- especially if the
intended audience is familiar with all the concepts (although ideally
I suppose they'd try to find an editor who had some expertise in the
field).  

Carol:
that's the thing. If the author is writing for a general audience (the
type who like self-help books, New Age or not), she needs to define
her terms and/or avoid jargon altogether. A scholarly text for a
specialized audience is another matter altogether (and requires an
editor with knowledge in that field). I don't do medical texts or
mathematical texts, for example. (I did edit one that was full of
Chinese characters, but I told the author in advance that those were
his responsibility--I had no possible way of checking their accuracy.
all I could do was to edit the English portion of the text.)

Annemehr:
> When I'm reading a text full of unfamiliar terms, I can only hold
about three new definitions in my head at once; beyond that, I need a
notebook to keep track.  And getting a proper understanding of such a
piece as a whole is a whole other matter, for me.

Carol:
Right. that's one of the problems that I face as editor. Thank
goodness for "Find," which enables me to see whether the term is
defined elsewhere in the manuscript. Some books, such as, say, a yoga
manual for beginners, need a glossary. I haven't yet decided whether
this book needs one. 

Annemehr: 
> I do love the internet, though.  My kids have no appreciation for
the difficulties, back in the day, when all I had to hand was a
dictionary and an aging set of Encyclopedia Britannicas.

Carol:
Same here, only I had a set of 1978 Worldbook Encyclopedias and a
dictionary. 

> > Carol, who found a wonderful online style guide for British
manuscripts in the humanities (MHRA) but needs something similar for
the (pseudo)sciences
 
> Annemehr,
> feeling a bit mischievous today, yet not wishing to touch the idea
of (pseudo)sciences with a ten-foot quill

Carol:
Hm. Why not? We could do astrology and divination and
ghost-busting--all sorts of possibilities. Seriously, though, I need a
style guide for British publishers of works in the sciences and social
sciences. The closest I've got is the American Psychological
Assoication (APA) Publication Manual, which I hate, hate, hate! 

I need to know details such as when to spell out numbers and which
citation format to use. So I guess the best I can do is to adapt the
APA manual to British punctuation and spelling.

Carol, hoping for another humanities project in the near future!