Best books for copyeditors

I still remember the first day of my first copyediting job, for my college newspaper. I had to take a test. I sat in a cramped cubicle with the paperback copy of the Webster's dictionary that I had brought with me, and I sweated. When I was finished, I brought my sheet, with three printed paragraphs on it, back to my boss and I felt buoyed up by the number of proofreading marks scattered across the page. There were about a million of them, so surely I'd done a great job.

And then I watched in horror as her red pen slashed through the text, ferreting out all the mistakes I'd missed.

"Don't worry," she said, seeing my face. "Being an editor doesn't mean knowing everything. It means knowing enough to identify a problem. And then knowing how to find the fix for it."

She gave me a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style and told me to go home and read. And I haven't stopped since. Over the past ten years, I've amassed a library of books about the theory and practice of editing. The comprehensive list could stretch on for pages; the list below consists of my picks for best of the best.



Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition: Every organization has its own style guide but Chicago is by far the gold standard. I like it because it allows for a lot of flexibility and common sense. The goal of Chicago is not so much to give you a list of rules of what to do and what not to do but to help you think about editing in a way that allows you to make the right decision for the manuscript. James (who is also an editor!) and I jokingly refer to it as "the Bible." (Bonus: it's purty. I love the little splash of Tangerine Tango we talked about a few weeks ago.)

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White: "Omit needless words." One day, I'm going to cross-stitch it onto a pillow. Though it does provide rules of usage and lists of "words commonly misspelled," Elements is less of a day-to-day editing reference and more of an overview of the craft of writing. It's a short, quick read, full of a kind of dry humor. After a hard day of wrangling with a pesky author over an ungrammatical phrase that simply must stay in his article, I sometimes retire to my bubblebath with Messrs. Strunk and White to reassure me of what I already knew: that I WAS RIGHT and THAT DAMN AUTHOR was wrong.

The Subversive Copyeditor by Carol Fisher Saller. Speaking of dealing with THOSE DAMN AUTHORS, Saller's guide suggests strategies that editors can use to build an atmosphere of trust and cooperation with their authors. She emphasizes that sometimes, doing what's best for the reader doesn't always mean being strictly grammatically correct, provides tips for dealing with workflow and freelancing issues, and is refreshingly honest about her own fallability ("Sometimes I mess up.")

Words into Type, 3rd Edition by Marjorie E. Skillin: This book has a little bit of everything, from copyediting to proofreading to typesetting. Words is in its third decade in print, and is in desperate need of an update for the internet age, but it's still an indispensable resource, especially as a companion to Chicago, for those times when you don't feel like thinking and just want an answer as to whether something acquiesces with or to something else. (Hint: can be pricey, so buy a used copy!)

Technical Editing by Judith Tarutz: Technical editors demand higher rates than regular old copyeditors, and so it's a skill worth building. Tarutz's book gives advice on how to edit highly technical, specialized subject matter and provides case studies to help you build confidence in your new skill.

Line by Line by Claire Kehwald Cook: It is nigh upon impossible to edit your own writing, especially when you are paid to eviscerate other peoples'. I know this firsthand. Cook's book gives you the heart to take up your pen against yourself, and then alerts you to the bad transitions and overwritten sentences that ARE lurking in your prose.

Like I said: definitely not a comprehensive list, but a good, broad collection in my mind.

To my fellow wordsmiths out there in blogland: Any greats you want to add?