The facts of a book are the responsibility of the author. The
acquiring editor is responsible for making sure the author
knows the subject. The responsibility of a copyeditor--for
example, me--is to fix wrong spelling and punctuation,
standardize things that can vary (numeral 10 or word ten?),
structure the manuscript for the "typesetter" ("Fig. 4.2 goes
about here"), and improve the writing as specified (usually
"light edit," meaning fix conspicuous bad grammar but do not
rewrite anything). A good copyeditor, given the leeway,
verifies proper name spellings of people and towns and
companies, checks URLs, queries the author (who is the
expert) about dubious facts (recently, the importance of the
Constitution during the Revolutionary War), and generally
tries to make the book better (yesterday, pointing out a
paragraph duplicated within a chapter).
Spelling checkers are helpful, but a
lot of authors don't seem to have used them. Those who have
used them still may not know when to use "affect" and when to
use "effect."
I don't work on fiction. In fact, I
don't work on many trade books.
(I'll tell you why if you really want to know.) Mostly, I
work on academic and scholarly books and sometimes
college-level textbooks. Often the books are peer-reviewed
before they're accepted for publication. I see lots of
footnotes, endnotes, reference lists, and bibliographies. My
specialties may skew my views of authors' responsibilities.
Nevertheless, how much money can the publisher budget to
check up on an author?
OK. I was wound up. Now I'm wound
down and can get back to work.
Joy, defensively
Various people said: "Too bad his editor didn't hire some
fact
> >> checkers too."
> >>
> >> Usually the copy-editor checks things like
that, and I'm
> >> surprised it was missed.
> >
> > Yes, but copy editing appears to be a dying
profession. These days it
seems
> > that copy-editing, for most books, means a
quick run through the
> > spell-checker.
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