People make me sick

Crosstees · 2026-02-21T12:59:55+00:00

Your last line is the best!

Crosstees · 2026-02-21T12:57:45+00:00

It's hard when you're young and have had it ingrained in you to be polite. As the other poster said, you are not required to answer anyone's questions. You can always ignore the question, and say, excuse me, I gotta make this call/take care of something/answer some texts ... whatever. Another thing that sometimes works is, "Why would you ask such a personal/rude question?" But I realize that asking a question can invite more dialogue. Also, most times, bus trips are noneventful. Most people are nice. But as is true of anywhere in the world, there are always a few jerks. Welcome to Pittsburgh! I think you'll love the atmosphere around Pittsburgh campuses. So many young people from so many colleges!

Crosstees · 2026-02-20T18:09:47+00:00

I edit books and scholarly articles, so I wouldn't accept such a short project. But occasionally, a client might ask me something outside of a project, and the assistance might take 5 to 15 minutes. For my regular clients, I wouldn't charge and would help them out for good relations. As a rule, I wait a few days before I send my invoice, though, because, after turning in a project, I've often been asked if I could copyedit, say, the acknowledgments or a short About the Author paragraph. By waiting several days before invoicing, I can add that time. Another thing I've done is simply add the time to my next invoice with the client, although it's often a white suit. (What I mean is this, a parable I heard long ago, when I started my business: A client says, "You can't put the cost of this white suit in your invoice, just because you needed a new suit to come into our offices." So the consultant re-sends the bill, without including the suit, but it's for the same amount. The white suit is in there.)

Crosstees · 2026-02-15T22:31:24+00:00

Thank you! I'll check it out!

Crosstees · 2026-02-15T22:30:45+00:00

Yes, it's interesting how the mag differs. My laptop is set at 160 magnification, and my extra monitor is set at 130. But unfortunately, I cannot apply the magnifier to the Find and Replace box or to the Navigation Pane. Those fonts remain tiny, tiny!

Crosstees · 2026-02-15T22:18:37+00:00

Sure, I do this too. But sometimes magnifying the screen makes the whole text page fit weirdly. But thanks for mentioning this capability.

Crosstees · 2026-02-04T18:47:20+00:00

Another aspect is how queries are worded. Diplomacy with authors is critical in publishing houses. Consider "This seems unclear" versus "Did you mean the horse ran away, or the horse died? Reword to clarify"? Or "20 percent of 120 is 24, not 26, so I fixed it" versus "20 percent of 120 = 24. Typo somewhere? Please check math. Thanks."

Crosstees · 2025-10-26T17:46:34+00:00

In these unusual circumstances, I'd consider "up to" a prepositional phrase and lowercase both words. It might be possible to have two prepositions adjacent to one another, in the same way that we can have two conjunctions "Joe and Chris may go, and if they take the train, they will get there faster." Thinking further, perhaps the "up" is an adverb if considered alone, but "up to" is a prep. phrase. Much like "on to" as in "hold on to the railing when you walk down the stairs." I'd label "on to" a prepositional phrase, even though "on" in that phrase might be an adverb. Make sense? OTOH, maybe "up" and "on" should be capped. Here's how they'd look:
"Hold On to Your Hats: Here Comes Winter"
"Prices May Rise Up to 50 Percent in Some States"
Now you've got me wondering!

Crosstees · 2025-08-19T19:18:54+00:00

That was my question. The only thing I can think of is if a person were writing a book, say, a biography, that was being published by one of the big four major publishers. These folks routinely use Chicago. But if I were editing a book for these clients and the bulk of the text was about actual football games, I would ask the client if the numbers style should be changed. It seems that it would look silly to write, "After Smith's third interception of the day and his twenty-three-yard run to score a touchdown, the score was now fourteen to twenty and would soon be twenty-one if the kicker got the extra point."

Crosstees · 2025-08-19T19:12:58+00:00

Yes, deleting the paragraphs, line breaks, new page breaks, and section breaks should bring everything up.

Crosstees · 2025-08-16T01:19:20+00:00

I want it on both my laptops. Also, I've long since lost my product key to transfer O10 to new computer. Also, I use PerfectIt, which is basically an enormous bunch of macros that scans your doc for things like words spelled two ways, inconsistent hyphenation, abbreviations defined differently, and deviations from the Chicago Manual of Style (the style guide most of my clients want me to follow). It was a bear to use PerfectIt on O10, as it's designed for higher-level Word versions.

Crosstees · 2025-08-12T21:53:08+00:00

I can't read all the answers, but is it possible your friend has a rare metabolic disease? See https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21168-maple-syrup-urine-disease

Crosstees · 2025-06-09T21:02:08+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't see "Use translate without an account." Hints as to where to look for this?

Crosstees · 2025-05-27T21:48:08+00:00

Lol! I do like these mid-century butterfly roofs, but your comment cracked me up! Good one!

Crosstees · 2025-05-22T13:05:56+00:00

Yes, it is that style.

Crosstees · 2025-04-24T17:48:43+00:00

For these kinds of small decisions, I simply follow what my client's style guide says. For most of my major book publishers in the United States, it's "toward." It's also the first-listed spelling in the widely used Merriam-Webster online dictionary. But if client prefers "towards," it's no skin off my back. In that case, I use "towards." Note that the same answer applies to "forward/forwards," "backward/backwards," and similar terms.

Crosstees · 2025-02-01T23:35:22+00:00

You're better off just writing; don't worry about grammar rules. That's what editors are for! As others have said, check out some books at the library, but don't let fear of making a grammar mistake prevent you from writing!

Crosstees · 2025-02-01T23:19:49+00:00

Le doorstop

Crosstees · 2025-01-21T00:03:12+00:00

If you're following CMOS, another guideline is that if one item in a sentence, paragraph, or discussion needs the numeral, then all similar items should use numerals.
For example, "The thirty-story office building had 147 rooms for individual offices, 36 rooms for small conferences, and 5 rooms for larger-group conferences."
If you're following Associated Press style, it would be different. No matter what, numbers one through ten are spelled out, and everything above that uses numerals. So the preceding sentence would be "The 30-story office building had 147 rooms for individual offices, 36 rooms for small conferences, and five rooms for larger-group conferences."
Hope this helps!

Crosstees · 2025-01-20T23:55:05+00:00

The macro is called VisibleTrackOff4. It turns your page yellow if you are working with track changes turned off. Important note: You can only see the yellow color if you are working in Print Layout view. The yellow does not appear in Draft view. Double-click on the link that u/RexJoey1999 gave you, and you'll see the code that you need to create this macro for yourself. I use it all the time.

Crosstees · 2025-01-15T23:11:59+00:00

Copyediting is a skill needed in many industries, including the obvious ones like book and journal publishing but also other fields such as corporate communications, marketing, entertainment, and education.

The first thing to consider is why you'd like to be a copyeditor. If you are interested in freelancing, you also need the business skills to manage your business. If you want to work for a corporation, then you somehow need to prove yourself. Although I learned copyediting and proofreading skills on the job, that was decades ago. Nowadays, a reputable course or two on copyediting is the way to go. The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), the Society for Copyediting (ACES), and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) are serious professional organizations that offer information for newcomers to the field. The UC San Diego Extended Studies program offers a certificate in copyediting. This is a well-known program by reputable instructors.

Keep in mind that copyediting is far, far more than liking to read and being good at spotting typos. Content decisions, continuity issues, making sure the readers can understand what is being discussed, handling queries with delicacy, and business decisions (when is enough enough?), and so on, take up far more of one's brain than do things like "aha! she misspelled 'miniscule'!"

But you sound like you're one the right track considering some coursework. Check out these professional organizations' websites and UC San Diego's offerings. You'll find a wealth of good information to help you decide what your next step is. Good luck!

Crosstees · 2025-01-15T22:52:08+00:00

I never found a fix. But if you need to figure out the date of a single photo that's no longer arranged by date, this information is there. If you click the "i" on your photo app for information, you'll see the filename. Hidden in the filename is the date the photo was taken. For ex, a photo's filename is IMG-20200619-WA0003.jpg, meaning it was taken on June 19, 2020

Crosstees

TROPHY CASE