Description
Self-paced courses are undertaken by the student at their own pace. No instructor feedback is given, although models are provided in the lessons. All self-paced courses include at least one live Q&A session, held via Zoom. Students will have 365 days to access the course material. To extend access by 3 to 12 months from the initial access end date, email the education coordinator. More information about how our classes are conducted is available here.
After placing your order, your course will be added to your personal course library on our education site. That site has different login information from the main EFA site. Please check your email for information on how to access the course.
This in-depth self-paced course is an introduction to copyediting. Students will learn the basic concepts and skills of copyediting, using Amy Einsohn’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook, 4th edition.
The course will cover the following basics:
- Levels of editing and types of editors
- Editorial process
- Editing checklist
- Handy keystrokes (for Mac and PC)
- Assessing and prepping the manuscript
- Working with Track Changes and find and replace
- Copyediting terms and symbols
- Spelling
- Capitalization
- Numbers
- Punctuation
- Abbreviations and acronyms
- Style guides, style sheets
- Other reference guides
- Fact-checking
- Querying
- Editing quoted material
- Editing figures, tables, and other visual elements
- Checking table of contents
- Wrap-up
Required texts:
- The Copyeditor’s Handbook, 4th ed., Amy Einsohn (the accompanying The Copyeditor’s Workbook is not required for this course, although it has exercises you may want to do on your own)
- The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed.
This course is open to students at all levels. Participants should know basic grammar and punctuation and be able to use Microsoft Word, including Track Changes.
Lourdes Venard is the founder of Comma Sense Editing, which provides services to individual authors and businesses. She has 30 years of writing and editing experience, including at major newspapers Newsday, The Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Washington Post. She also teaches copyediting through an online course at the University of California, San Diego, and is active in the American Copy Editors Society, having served as a scholarship judge for 11 years.
