It’s a new year, and many people make resolutions to edit their lives, so to speak: exercise more, eat or drink less, get their homes in order by editing out unneeded objects.
What about editing yourself, as in your words?
A few weeks ago, I was engaged in a group email interchange (personal, not business) involving a decision to be made, which left me frustrated with the way things were going. In a final act of exasperation—and perhaps acting too truthfully—I typed “I really don’t care” as my final response. But as my finger hovered over the “Send” button, my editor’s brain kicked in and gave me pause. My reply sounded too flippant. Would I leave something like that in a client’s document, or would I tweak it for better diction and tone? I decided to revise my response to “It doesn’t matter to me,” taking the onus off of “I,” placing it on the issue (“it”), and changing the verb from one of personal emotion to impersonal import.
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"Click. Add note to replace text. Add text box with notation for typesetting. Strike through text. Insert correct source at cursor." I am working in Adobe Acrobat on page proofs, preparing them for publication with a university press. I have been invested in this project from:
A Different Kind of Manuscript Twenty years ago, however, you would have found me in the venerable Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan or Biblioteca Statale of Cremona in Italy, perusing a different kind of manuscript – ones written by hand on vellum or parchment paper in the late Middle Ages. I imagined a life of research, studying the written treasures hidden within the pages of such medieval manuscripts – accessible only to those trained to read the cryptic script and qualified to handle the fragile pages – and teaching Latin to university students. How did I end up working on modern books, on digital platforms, for other scholars? |
Follow MeAuthorI am Carla DeSantis, and welcome to my blog! I love language and words and books, and have turned this love into a business, helping others to perfect their written message. Archives
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