Features

Paperless Proofreading:
A Publishing Revolution
Kristen King online, they have nothing to compare it proofreading is the only part of the editing
with. During this proofread, they check process that occurs on paper.
As publishers shift toward electronic for typos, spelling, subject-verb agreement, What does this transition mean for
manuscript-processing systems, the editing style points, and so on.” the relevance of paper proofreading? The
process is increasingly paperless. For copy- “When I proofread”, says freelance edi- publication process for many publishers is
editors, who have been editing documents tor Dana Sacks, “I am, of course, looking more and more completely paperless, and a
electronically for years, the change is for grammar, but also for style. I believe move to electronic proofreading is a logical
mostly procedural. For proofreaders, how- that proofreaders need to look for things byproduct of that evolution. Says Parker,
ever, the electronic age of editing means that are ‘off’. Are the sentences complete? “we recently surveyed our freelancers
tackling new responsibilities in a different Are the tables where they need to be? It regarding their potential ability to perform
medium. also depends on what the client wants. the function electronically. It would fit
Sometimes proofreading can be checking well with our in-house workflow, reduce
Proofreading in a Nutshell for style—changing words. Other times, the costs associated with trafficking hard
Traditionally, a central duty of the proof- it’s just looking for grammatical mistakes. copy back and forth, and allow for a quick-
reader was to compare keyed copy with the It all depends on who is paying you.” er turnaround of work. I anticipate that we
author’s original to make sure that no errors will transition to such a workflow for JCO
were introduced in the typesetting process. The e-Revolution over the course of the next year.”
Another component of proofreading has According to freelance editor John As a former Lippincott Williams &
customarily been reviewing hard copies of Sealine, formerly a managing editor for Wilkins (LWW) account manager, free-
composed pages to ensure that such design new journals at Cadmus Professional lance proofreader Trudy Rutherford has
elements as column alignment, spacing, Communications, “with the change to already had experience with the electronic
and line breaks meet the publication’s electronic manuscripts, the text is edited proofreading workflow. “At LWW, we had
specifications. Even light copyediting on the screen, and the original keystrokes a journal customer who wanted to do elec-
responsibilities—such as checking spelling, of the author have been captured; thus, tronic proofing, and I had training and did
grammar, and punctuation—fall under the there is no proofreading in the traditional some articles to familiarize myself with
heading of proofreading at times. sense. What the copyeditor submits to the process.” She used a PC and Adobe
At Allen Press, in Lawrence, Kansas, composition is the final version, as correct Acrobat software to make editorial chang-
proofreaders perform a variety of tasks. “For as the author submitted and improved or es and received files via e-mail.
material typed from hard copy, they do a corrected by the copyeditor. There is no “I mainly use Microsoft Word on my
comparison, word-for-word proofread”, in-between typesetter whose keystokes home PC. I look at grammar, style, and
says Allen Customer and Composition must be checked by a proofreader.” so on. Sometimes I’ve received Adobe
Editorial Services Division Director For many publications, the hard-copy documents to look at. Sometimes I’ve had
Susan Metzger. “For files that come in component of the prepublication process is actual text files to look at”, says freelance
electronically, the bulk of the material being phased out. Manuscripts are submit- technical editor Alison Weiss. “I mainly
we receive, we do a quality check. That ted and edited electronically, and galley receive and send documents via e-mail.
includes proofreading the title and authors proofs that used to take hard-copy form Sometimes I download them [from an]
and then doing a check on the rest of the are now available electronically in PDF FTP server. Sometimes the documents are
galleys, which includes checking line end- (portable data format). At the Journal of viewed via my customer’s Internet-based
ings, spacing between heads, loose lines, Clinical Oncology (JCO), in Alexandria, system, but I generally communicate via
anything out of the ordinary. For jobs that Virginia, explains Copyediting Manager e-mail with attachments.”
we copyedit, they do what we call a pseu- Doug Parker, proofreaders perform light Parker anticipates that eventually his
doproofread; that is, they read it word for copyediting on hard-copy proofs. In the copyeditors and proofreaders at JCO will
word, but, because the file is copyedited past, their notations have been returned in all receive and return their manuscripts
hard copy, and in-house copyeditors trans- through the Bench>Press electronic
KRISTEN KING (www.kristenkingfreelancing ferred them to clean hard-copy pages for manuscript processing system, and proof-
.com) is a Virginia-based freelance writer- return to the compositor. Now, the copy- readers will annotate PDF documents.
editor. editors work completely electronically, and “In the past, our copyeditors picked up

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continued

manuscripts through an FTP site”, Parker

explains. “The short-term vision for the
proofreaders is the FTP option, but our
Tools of the Trade for Electronic Proofreading
long-term goal is to integrate them into
the Bench>Press system for a completely Hardware
paperless workflow.” • PC, or Mac with reliable PC compatibility.
• High-speed modem or cable Internet connection.
Pros and Cons • Electronic stylus for “writing on” PDF documents.
The consensus is that a transition to elec- • Mouse.
tronic proofreading will reduce the time Software
and expense of hard-copy proofreading for • Word-processing software.
most publishers. But are there disadvan- o Microsoft Word (preferred).
tages, too? According to Rutherford, one
o WordPerfect.
major advantage of a paperless proofread-
ing workflow is “savings for shipping costs
• PDF-editing software.
of proofs to proofreaders, which helps to o Adobe Acrobat suite (preferred).
reduce the turnaround time, especially o ScanSoft.
with journal schedules getting shorter and
shorter”. However, she says, “after [my Having the copy in hand enables me to online editing is preferable to hard copy for
LWW customer and I] completed our trial easily page back and forth in the document copyediting because it gives you so much
articles, we both felt it was a cumbersome to look for consistency. . . . That is hard to more leeway to change things around with
process. Serious reading of several articles do online.” minimal mess and effort”, she says. “But
on the computer is tedious to the eyes. In Apparently, Harteker is not alone. “We proofreading is a different animal. I can
addition, we felt limited in its use—you have been unable to find a proofreader who never really tell whether tiny stuff, like
can take hard copy with you and don’t will read electronic files without print- periods, is right. Maybe an online proof-
need to be in front of the computer”, and ing them out”, says Seitz. “Proofreaders reading that is always followed by a qual-
for many freelancers, the portability of who have tried it complain of eye strain, ity-control go-through would work, but the
hard-copy proofs is a major benefit. headaches, and stiff necks and shoulders. human eye can pick up only so much on
“[Electronic proofreading] is cumber- [They] cannot sit for hours and read on the screen.”
some for the freelancers and makes them screen. Therefore, it slows down the pro- Despite the potential cost- and time-sav-
cranky”, says Anne Seitz, co-owner of cess. Proofreaders request more money to ing advantages of electronic proofreading,
Hearthside Publishing Services, a small, read electronically because either they are Metzger agrees with Long. “I don’t think
Pennsylvania-based production services printing out the material or it takes them electronic proofreading is as good as
company that specializes in medical and much longer to read electronic files.” reading on paper, because things can get
academic publishing, working primarily missed, and it’s easy to lose your place”,
with overloaded major medical and college A Question of Quality she says. “There would also be the issue
textbook publishers. “If [the proofreaders] Electronic proofreading holds the potential of training to annotate PDFs for return of
aren’t happy, I’m not happy”, she says. for faster work, but what about better, or proofs to authors and editors.”
Some freelances get around the neces- equally good, work, compared with hard- But for some folks, like Sealine, the
sity of working only in front of a computer copy proofreading? “The inherent issues of electronic workflow is a good move across
by proofreading on paper even when they having a typesetter sometimes misread your the board. Freelance and former in-house
receive electronic documents. “Before I handwriting or simply introduce typos are Journal of Biological Chemistry copyeditor
send it back to the client, I print it out eliminated”, says Sealine. “Using many Carolyn Akehurst says electronic proof-
and read through it one more time”, says of [Microsoft] Word’s search and replace reading is faster, makes it easier to maintain
Linda Harteker, a freelance editor and a tools makes for more accuracy. Word can consistency, and provides easier access to
copyeditor for Science News magazine. “I also be customized if you are clever enough support than hard-copy proofreading. And,
find that looking at the hard copy makes to do it. This is a huge advantage.” When says Akehurst, “it should mean more busi-
it possible for me to find many things that it comes to proofreading PDF documents, ness for copyeditors and proofreaders in the
I miss on screen. The errors I find at this some software, such as Adobe’s Acrobat long run. People eventually recognize [that]
point are both small (such as double peri- suite, allows essentially the same function- the spell checker is not a replacement for
ods and extra spaces) and large (such as ality as Word. the copyeditor or proofreader. I am amazed
formatting issues and consistency of font). Freelancer Linda Long disagrees. “I think by how many people in the industry think

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a spell checker is the tool for a searching through WebTV, so I

perfect paper.” Electronic proof- would need a computer, software,
A Paperless-Proofreading
reading allows publishers to take and minimal training.” With Primer
advantage of editing technol- her LWW electronic-proofread-
ogy and individual attention and ing experience under her belt, Tips for Electronic Proofreading
expertise. Rutherford will have to learn less 1. Use your resources. Ask your clients to provide you
than a proofreader who has never with all available tools to help you complete the work to
Money Makes the World done it before, but the shift would their specifications: style sheets, company- or publication-
Go Around still require a major investment specific software, access to the organization’s internal net-
As proofreading processes for her. work, a direct contact for technical support, and anything
evolve, so does the specialized Sealine takes a different else you can think of.
knowledge required to use them. approach to the question of pay
Does that mean that electronic for electronic proofreading. “It all 2. Equip yourself. Be sure that your current software
proofreading, with its expecta- comes down to what one defines is up to date and up to snuff. Microsoft Word (with its
tion of specific computer skills as ‘the page’. In the old days, a Track Changes) is pretty much a necessity, and Adobe
and requirement for particular page of paper was pretty stan- Acrobat 7.0 (which allows you to edit PDFs) is strongly
equipment and software, should dard, as long as you could insist recommended. You may also want to look into purchasing
command a higher rate than on double-spaced copy on an an electronic stylus, such as the cordless iPen, for writing
hard-copy proofreading? For 8.5-by-11-inch page. Sometimes directly on PDFs. Last but not least, a high-speed Internet
Akehurst, who is accustomed to you’d get single-spaced copy, but connection will make file transfers significantly easier.
receiving a lot of support for elec- then you could just double the
tronic proofreading in the form of rate”, he explains. “However, 3. Electronic means electronic. Although electronic
a company keyboard and toolbars how can you be sure that the proofreading may seem slower in the beginning, you’ll
and software for journal-specific project you are given electroni- increase your speed as you get more familiar with it. Resist
editing programs, “higher qual- cally is actually 12 pages? There the temptation to print the files, proofread on hard copy,
ity, higher quantity, and personal is a trend toward counting text and then transfer your corrections—you’ll be doing the
contact [with clients] via e-mail by word count or even character same work twice!
indicate more money”. count instead—or even bytes. I
Parker believes in equal pay for think that might be the way of Terms to Learn
equal performance. “I think the the future.” 1. PDF (portable data format)—A PDF document is basi-
rate should be similar”, he says, cally a snapshot of a document that allows anyone with a
“as long as the essential func- Putting It All Together PDF reader to view the document even without owning
tions remain the same. There is With the growing paperless trend the source software. Adobe and ScanSoft are the leading
no reason to place a higher value in the publishing industry, it is no manufacturers of PDF-viewing and PDF-editing software.
on the function just because it longer a question of whether elec-
is performed electronically.” But tronic proofreading will become 2. FTP (file transfer protocol)—An FTP site allows
do the new procedures inher- prevalent, but rather when. All- back-and-forth file transfer without use of e-mail. After
ent in electronic proofreading electronic manuscript processing logging in to the FTP site with a user name and password,
constitute a change in function? systems, such as eManuscript and an editor can “pick up” clean files and “drop off” edited
Metzger thinks so. “I think it Bench>Press, are simultaneously files by dragging and dropping from his or her hard drive.
would probably warrant a higher revolutionizing the industry and This means that you don’t have to worry about your e-
rate because of the need [in making it obsolete. It seems that mail provider’s rejecting large attachments—you physi-
some workflows] to know how to proofreading will always have a cally put them on your computer from the FTP site.
annotate PDFs”, she says. place in the production process,
For Rutherford, the work is but what it encompasses and how 3. VPN (virtual private network)—A company’s inter-
slower, and that means a higher it happens are in the midst of a nal file-storage system, also referred to as an intranet.
rate. But if electronic proofread- major evolution. When you have full access (sometimes called tunneling)
ing became the norm, “I would be to a client’s VPN, you have access to all the files and elec-
out of business because I do not tronic resources that an in-house employee does, and often
wish to do electronic proofread- the software as well.
ing. I do not have a computer.
I do all my e-mails and Internet

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