A humorous consideration of institutional factbooks and the editor's role is presented. Factbooks are increasingly popular as an administrative tool for institutional research, strategic planning, and public relations. Topics include the following: the need to gain the college president's approval for the publication, cooperation with other…

An interview with Howard E. Smith, Jr., who edits science and junior books at McGraw-Hill, and with Thomas G. Aylesworth, who edits books for young readers at Doubleday. They discuss the selection of authors and subjects for books; science fiction and biography; characteristics of good science books; and foreign books. (LS)

A discussion of the existence and consequences of censored or edited television films held by film libraries. (CH)

This paper surveys the state of newspaper technology, with special reference to its impact on editorial quality. Examples of financial savings resulting from electronic editing and typesetting are cited, along with a complete budget for a paper of around 100,000 circulation before and after automation. Studies of newsroom salary and employment…

Professional women in education often encounter the need to write for their peers. This monograph discusses approaches to the writing process that will make writing assignments of various lengths more enjoyable and effective. An introductory chapter examines the search for a topic, creating time for writing, the stages of writing, and…

Survey data on newspaper food editors and newspaper readers were collected through a title-rating technique. Analysis of responses to 40 food titles and leads indicated three newspaper food-editor types: transitional, traditional, and "new guard." Food-page readers fell into two types: information oriented (nutritionists) and cooking…

This book describes the various stages of book publishing and the people responsible for those stages. Its seventeen chapters discuss the following topics: the writer, the literary agent, the publishing house, the decision to publish, the editor, the illustrator, the copy editor, the designer, the jacket designer, the production supervisor, the…

While editors have no way of encoding most of the features of the human voice, they are often able to use punctuation and other devices to give the impression of speech. While retaining many distinctive features of a personal voice is possible in writing, considerations of voice are inseparable from considerations of textual features and audience…

A study was conducted at two major midwestern newspapers to ascertain the effects of video display terminal (VDT) use on the work and perceptions of copy editors. The methodology consisted of observation of one full day of copy desk work at a VDT by a single local news desk copy editor and one full day of work at VDTs by a regular weekday shift of…

The computer readability editing system described in this report was developed to serve as an author's aid in improving the ease of comprehending Navy technical manuals and training materials. The system has features to (1) flag uncommon and misspelled words and long sentences, (2) suggest simple replacements for difficult words and phrases, and…

If revision is as important as most teachers think it is and if students do not revise their work or cannot do it well, then teachers need to find ways to get students to revise involuntarily. Teachers could begin by emphasizing that revision is done primarily for the reader's benefit. That the revision stage of writing should rely heavily on…

This manual was developed as a resource for teacher inservice workshops on writing and also for use by individual teachers in developing their own writing skills. Areas of instruction include: development of various manuscript elements (title, table of contents, etc.); generation of unique ideas; typing and illustration; and ways to publish the…

Because of the increase in the number of manuscripts submitted to journals, editors and publishers must either publish more manuscripts or increase the proportion of manuscripts rejected. Rejection decisions are usually informed by informal peer evaluation, editorial processes, and/or citation analysis. Unfortunately, no standard criteria for…

Defining "functional documents" as those such as regulations, contracts, and policies that people must read in order to act, this paper posits the need for a revision principle by which writers can structure such documents to meet readers' needs. The first part of the paper describes a research project that uncovered some needs of…

Since a fundamental principle of communication is to adapt to the audience, authors of journal articles would be wise to familiarize themselves with their primary audience, the editor of the professional journal. Everything that an editor does results from an interplay of the editor's ideas about the purpose, scope, audience, literary quality, and…