The author isn’t privy to what is going on inside your head! You already know that there’s a gulf between what someone’s thinking and how they write it down. Put yourself in the author’s position, receiving the query. Use Google (or your preferred search engine) and search more widely if you don’t get a sensible hit in a dictionary. Only today, I discovered half a dozen words missing from Merriam-Webster that are terms of art in anthropology. And don’t restrict yourself to looking in a dictionary. Look it up before you change it or query it.Īs an example, don’t correct “immanent” to “imminent.” Look up “immanent” if it’s not in your vocabulary yet. Just because you don’t know a word doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Is your query about a factual issue-a missing reference, a sentence that got half-amended by the author before they moved on? Is there genuine confusion? If it’s a wording thing, maybe put the query aside for a couple of paragraphs-a simple edit to put things right may become obvious.ĭo be very aware that a word unfamiliar to you may be the perfect word in the context. You all know this: it’s not your book (or journal article, or report, or what have you).ĭon’t try to silence an author’s voice because you have a bee in your bonnet about a particular point of grammar. Is what you’re about to ask a valid query? Does it truly need raising? From general chat on social media, I’m afraid some copyeditors do like to use queries to show off their own knowledge, or try to force their personal preferences on authors. Sue’s Seven Golden Rules for Writing Author Queries It also discourages them from making last minute rewrites-genius!”Īnd a few weeks ago, I received this from another happy professor-author: “Would that all copy editors were so thorough and clear in their queries. Why should you take any notice of me, a UK copyeditor of scholarly humanities and social sciences? Well, exactly a year before I started drafting this post, I received this comment from a professor-author: “Everything has gone so smoothly and the tables which you sent our authors make the process quick and simple.
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