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Under- and Over-Thinking
I am teh stoopid. I got all prepared for two doctor's appointments today, including arranging my work schedule to have the day off for them, only to realise on my way out the door that they are actually NEXT Monday. At least I remembered before cycling up the giant, heavily car- and bus-laden hill into the city?
So I am using my unexpected time to catch up on some proofreading. And, as with the last thing I proofread, getting all snarled up and frustrated, since it turns out that proofing for publication is actually pretty different from proofreading my friends' essays or my mom's business letters &c. For one thing, it's not really a dialogue the way it is with people I know. For another, the publisher I'm working for hasn't specified any particular style guide I should be using as my Ultimate Authority, and it turns out there's actually a HUGE grey area between 'correct usage' and 'incorrect usage', especially when it comes to punctuation. A piece can be very awkwardly written and punctuated and still be technically correct/allowable, and I'm not sure where to draw the line when suggesting changes. I also don't have any way of distinguishing 'this is an error that I found' from 'this is a stylistic suggestion' on the notes I'm making. Though I guess that is something I could start doing easily enough, if I just mark my 'this is just a suggestion' notes with an asterisk or something. Thanks, thinking-out-fingers!
So I am using my unexpected time to catch up on some proofreading. And, as with the last thing I proofread, getting all snarled up and frustrated, since it turns out that proofing for publication is actually pretty different from proofreading my friends' essays or my mom's business letters &c. For one thing, it's not really a dialogue the way it is with people I know. For another, the publisher I'm working for hasn't specified any particular style guide I should be using as my Ultimate Authority, and it turns out there's actually a HUGE grey area between 'correct usage' and 'incorrect usage', especially when it comes to punctuation. A piece can be very awkwardly written and punctuated and still be technically correct/allowable, and I'm not sure where to draw the line when suggesting changes. I also don't have any way of distinguishing 'this is an error that I found' from 'this is a stylistic suggestion' on the notes I'm making. Though I guess that is something I could start doing easily enough, if I just mark my 'this is just a suggestion' notes with an asterisk or something. Thanks, thinking-out-fingers!