Next meeting:

Tuesday, 2 April 2019

Educational publishingA look at the fast-paced world of educational publishing: how it functions and what skills are most prized. The talk will provide an overview of the workings of the publishing industry in a changing educational landscape. With new teaching and learning demands, publishing professionals need to develop newer skill sets in the critical areas of instructional design, content compliance and permissions, technical writing, and working across a range of platforms.

Presenter: Dr Gurdish Gill has 20 years’ experience in education, training and publishing. During her teaching career she was deeply involved in curriculum design and development. She continued to pursue her interest in education, and in particular changing trends and policies, by studying for a Doctor of Education with the University of Western Australia. Gurdish has worked with a range of publishers, and currently oversees the content development team for Australia and New Zealand at McGraw-Hill.

6.30 pm for drinks/supper, 7.00 pm start.

Venue: Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney (near cnr Bathurst Street and close to Town Hall train station). This venue is wheelchair accessible and has an ambulant bathroom.

Cost: $25 members, $30 non-members,$15 concession (current Centrelink orDVA concession card).

Bookings via Events on the IPEd website: http://iped-editors.org/Professional_development/Events.aspx

May meeting: Australian Style

March 2019

Technical editing

InsideAccreditation renewals reminder 4

Ethics in editing: part 3 5

Editors’ lunch at Dorrigo 6

From the committee 7

Member discounts 7

Professional development 8

Professional development survey 2018 report 8

What a delightful surprise that technical editing appears to be the hot topic of 2019 for editors. Well, that’s the conclusion we can draw from a record number of attendees at the Editors NSW March meeting. Lyneve Rappell did more than tell us about the process of technical editing: she had us experience a small slice of it, with exercises that built to create a detailed picture of the many facets of this specialised genre. It was concise, pertinent and enlightening, and this is a snapshot of her presentation.

Lyneve Rappell has extensive experience in technical and business editing and writing, from hiring editors and writers to undertaking this work herself. She currently works for ANZ Research, which provides analysis and forecasts for regional and global economies, and financial and commodity markets.

Why are editors interested in technical editing?Lyneve rightly notes there are many of freelancers in the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) and focused her talk in that direction. A lot of technical editing is freelance, and her aim was to give editors an understanding of what is going on in this area. There are good sources to view how technical

documentation is defined, and she calls it ‘documentation’ because it is not all writing or word-based:● the Australian Society for Technical

Communication (ASTC)● the Society of Technical Communication

(STC) in the US, which is a very big, well- developed organisation with lots of material and cutting-edge documentation ● the Institute of Scientific and Technical

Communicators (ISTC) in the UK, which is a little less generous with the information that is up on their website.

continued on page 2

Images: CC0

2 March 2019

These sites between them tend to define technical editing as ‘the editing of any documents, materials or websites that have to with technical things – engineering, biotech, machinery – or anything that uses technology to get the document out’, which, she says, pretty much covers absolutely everything these days. For our presentation, Lyneve narrowed the topic to the technical stuff that the documentation fits around, looking at ‘things that are things’.The first step was to give us a sense of the sort of documents

that editors would deal with in technical communication. We have all encountered documentation in our everyday life, from a warranty document on a pair of shoes we bought, to a refund document or a form we had to fill in online. All of these things have been constructed in a particular way and they are examples of technical editing that can also include things like:● instruction manuals or instructions sheets● training material● policy documents● procedures● IKEA catalogue. A big part of technical editing is deciding if and where

images may be more useful than text. In some situations, drawings are necessary; photographs are great, but sometimes they have too much detail, so if you can pare away the details within a drawing, that is beneficial. There are many variables: Sometimes there are restrictions in different countries with illustrated representations; there are types of work where an illustration is far clearer than a photograph; times where a photograph is much more helpful; times where photograph with an illustration is best. These are examples of the decision that an editor would make, to see which is most suitable. All editing is about decision-making and it is what informs

those decisions and what feeds into answers on those decisions, that defines the kind of editor you are.

Graphic componentsThe first questions with any technical documentation should be ‘are words necessary?’ and ‘if so, how many?’ That depends on a whole range of things. Lyneve highlighted this with a story of a barbeque she has at home that came without an instruction manual on how to put it together. She says, ‘I went online and there was a video with a lovely Scandinavian scene and a man putting the barbeque together – no words in the whole thing – and it worked perfectly. And if we think historically, watching someone do something is how we learned how to do things. I learned to cook bread with my mother showing me. Reading an instruction is really unnatural and has all kind of inherent problems.’For safety regulations, importantly, intuitive design is

the optimum; if you can design something that makes it impossible for someone to kill themselves with it, that is key. Instead of putting up a sign that says ‘don’t walk here or you will fall down a hole’, the aim is to design something where no-one could possibly walk there and fall down a hole. This involves considering the human factor design, assuming

that people forget what they are doing, they are tired, worried about things, on the mobile phone, and so on. But a certain amount of forewarning still has to go on and

safety documentation is a specialty in itself.

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continued on page 3

Freelancing in technical editing, you are rarely in the same domain twice: you go from engineering to construction to a medical company, in and out of different domains, each with different demands, so you are always learning new ways, new language, how the language works and making decisions around that. It’s exciting.

Graphics referencesIt is always good to acquaint yourself with information in the field. Two people in their field who are worth reading are Patrick Hofmann and Daniel Moody.Patrick Hofmann, a Canadian based in Sydney, has been

around for a long time. He is very good at information design, which is the whole package of how something meets its user. He is a great example of decisions on what medium it is, how it is laid out, and so on.Daniel Moody, an Australian, has produced a great article

about the physics of notations in software engineering that has seven criteria for analysing the success of the graphic, in a software text. It is pretty hardcore, but it is a really interesting way to approach a design problem. When you are looking at an image that does not seem to be doing what it is meant to do, going to those seven categories usually pinpoints where the graphic is failing. They can also be useful for general editing, as a source of trigger points for what is working and what is not.To help demonstrate the importance of graphics and

illustrations, Lyneve involved the audience in an exercise. She held up a sneaker and asked our editors to draw it, thinking of the importance of technical communication. This information might be in a manual, so identifying all the components is vital. More on the shoe later …The exercise was designed to highlight what an editor might

have to look for in a good illustration or graphic. When editing technical documentation, covering all the aspects that might be required for the user is a major consideration.

LanguageThe primary thing that technical editors must have is a mastery of plain English. Even the most technical documentation has a good foundation in plain English alongside good grammar. A fabulous manual, says Lyneve, is the Simplified Technical

English manual, produced for the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD). It is designed by Europeans, speaking in English, working on high specification engineering, design and construction work, where you cannot have something go wrong. It has a list of words that have straightforward meanings in

English, with a list of rules where some overlap plain English rules and some contradict plain English rules. There are times where you might choose this over plain English or in addition to plain English to make editing decisions. It does not have great design, but even if you are not going to be a technical editor, maybe if you are going to work in translation, it is a great tool because it was created by people working outside their native English language. There are a whole lot of considerations about the way non-English speakers approach English that are really helpful to think about.

3 March 2019

It is not a substitute for English, and it does not distil English. They give the example of ‘You turn round the round knob around …’ where the same word is being used in different ways, and they suggest alternatives to make it clearer. There is also advice on sentence structures. In the course of your editing, these decisions float around

the back of your head. If you are editing documentation that is primarily going to Asia, for ease of reading, you will make slightly different decisions than on the documents that are going to be primarily read in Australia. If people have to re-read documentation, it is not effective.Plain English Foundation Executive Director Neil

James, though, argues for the place of rhetoric in technical publications. In his published paper, he suggests there are times when you need to win over your user and that influences how you could approach a sentence – that art of persuasion and putting the reader first, as opposed to just giving instruction.Generally, if you are giving instructions you start with the

verb, for example, put, gather, stir, heat, but there are some areas where you might use a different style of instruction, like ‘in order to not kill yourself, do x, y, z’.

Structured authoringStructured authoring is where the components of the language that you are using in that domain are particularly programmed into XML and stored, and you draw them out to construct the work, which makes it much faster and easier to alter documents from one type to another.In theory it was one of the answers to the problem of

writing, say, a computer user manual that is being used by technicians, users and sales people. You can write one set of text and re-version it more easily. For entities like banks, or governments, which have fairly restrictive language sources, it should, in theory, be easy, but it has not taken off here in Australia. In some areas, it would save us millions of dollars if they could get their act together. In almost every company, and every domain, there are

restrictions around the way they will tolerate certain language or not, whether that is convention or the style that they are using. There are times we know it could be done better, but ‘this is the way it is done here’, so we just get on with it, or we recommend an alternative and then just get on with it.

Back to the sneakerAfter drawing the sneaker, our audience was asked to use language to label the components. Some bits of shoe terminology, most people know: sole, tongue, laces, eyelets, aglets, inner soles, arch support, upper, tread, brand, stitching, toe-cap. These are all technical terms.Other less-known terms are heel counter, heel tab, quarter

(which is the part on the side), collar (and only sneakers have collars), lace guard, vamp and foxing.The key for an editor is to work out which terms are

relevant to the reader. What do people need to know about them? There is an important distinction between a technical term, a piece of jargon, and natural language:

continued from page 2

● A technical term is something which refers to a specific thing and cannot be called anything else, nor does it refer to anything else inside that domain. ● There are bits of jargon that generally have a loose

meaning and often refer to other things as well, and even within the industry people will tell you ‘Oh, yes, everyone in the industry knows that term’, but when you ask them to define it, they struggle. ● Inside the particular domain of knowledge there are

ordinary words that have a specific meaning, with technical words like ‘vamp’ and ‘wex’, which do not really have other meanings outside that domain.

The userThis is the single thing that differentiates technical documents from most other documentation. There are two types of users that we generally refer to: the

technical users and end users, and a technical user can also be an end user. Try mentally going through the whole process of putting on

a pair of sneakers, step-by-step, as if you were writing it for someone who has never seen a shoe in their life. This gives you some idea of the considerations involved in creating a technical document. Each step must be carefully examined for clarity and comprehension and each instruction should be as precise, but encompassing, as possible. There is a common problem, for instance, that in writing

instructions people forget to include ‘turn it on’ or ‘plug it in’. And it is important to test the instructions/equipment with someone who is going to use it. There are other terms we can include for the shoe: waffle

threads, vulcanised rubber (and there is a whole sub-set of this product), functionality of the shoe, waterproofing, support, ergonomics.The depth of information depends very much on who your

end user is. If you are writing a technician-to-technician document, then all these technical terms would apply and would need to be written exactly.

Where the ‘shoe’ fitsThe final thing to consider is where the document fits in the suite of documents around that item. You might look at the sneaker and think ‘Well, there is the manufacturer’s document and maybe the sales document’. In reality, around this there would be warranty documents, policies and procedures, safety documentation, compliance documentation to American and international manufacturing standards, which would all be related – a plethora of documents around simple items such as our sneakers.Where the document you are editing fits into that massive

suite is important because it will have to cross reference certain things. What you have might be a very simple user document, but it then forms the basis of a legal document about the use or misuse of this particular item, or refunds, or the warranty. And if nothing else, there will be policies and procedures

around it.

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4 March 2019

What is a decent quote?Any new job you take on has a degree of learning in it, so that has to somehow be factored into your pricing, without pricing yourself out of the job. One way to reconcile this is to decide you need to be roughly earning ‘x’ amount per hour. Then there are some jobs you will take on because you

don’t have knowledge in that arena, and you want to develop your knowledge base. You know that this will take you a number of hours to

research the field, even to know what questions to ask the client at the briefing stage. That sort of research, Lyneve said, she undertakes in her own time. If it is something that no reasonable person would know anyway, however, you can ask the client if they have someone to inform you, because with technical documentation, you are just re-versioning someone else’s information and there will be a technical specification somewhere, or an expert who knows, and you should get that information from them. Overall, it is a judgement call on how much should be

borne by the client and how much you take on yourself as part of the upskilling.When you start out, it takes a lot of time to ‘learn

everything about everything’ and you end up checking the style guide for every second query, but by the time you have memorised those things and you know what is out there, it becomes easier. Don’t oversell yourself, though. You are working with

people who are experts in the field and they might not be able to string a sentence together, but they will pick straight away when you don’t know what you are doing, and your respect factor will plummet.

The briefThe questions for all briefs should include: When does the project start and when does it finish? How many hours of work are you expecting to be done in that time? What is the budget? What is the deliverable? Who is the contact? What are the benchmarks along the way of the project, where you know you are still on your timeline to have that stage approved and you can move onto the next stage? And you can bill at each of those stages.

continued from page 3

It is important to always get your brief right in all jobs, but most important in technical editing. Do some homework before you get there, so you are familiar with documents, language and users that might be involved. Spend a couple of hours studying the company’s website so you can ask some intelligent questions about what the documentation is for. Finally, consider who the stakeholders are: there are

other people around technical documentation like auditors, compliance checkers, and lawyers who will often need to read or use parts of the document, but they are not the primary end user.

ReferencesThe Australian Society for Technical Communication (ASTC) https://www.astc.org.au/

The Society for Technical Communication (US)https://www.stc.org/

The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (UK) https://www.istc.org.uk/

ASD-STE100 (ASD Simplified Technical English) Version 7, January 2017 http://www.asd-ste100.org/; register to order a free copy at http://www.asd-ste100.org/request.html

Patrick Hofmann on Twitter https://twitter.com/phofmann

Moody D, 2009 ‘The “Physics” of Notations: Toward a Scientific Basis for Constructing Visual Notations in Software Engineering’, IEEE Transactions On Software Engineering vol. 35, no. 6, November–December pp. 756–779

Transcribed and written up by Susie Pilkington

Accreditation renewals reminder The Accreditation Board reminds all accredited editors (AEs) who were accredited in 2014 or 2009 (and renewed in 2014) that their accreditation is due to expire this year. To continue using their AE postnominal and be listed as an AE on the web-site and in the IPEd Editors Directory, these AEs will need to apply for renewal of their accreditation. Renewal applications open on 15 May 2019 and close on 15 August 2019.

Further information will be made available on the website closer to the date. The Board encourages all AEs to participate in the upcoming conference, as going to the conference sessions, workshops and volunteering to help out all count as professional develop-ment activities for the purposes of accreditation renewal.

Linda Nix, IPEd Accreditation Board delegate for New South Wales

Copy deadline for thenext (April) issue of

Blue Pencilis Friday, 12 April.

Images: CC0

5 March 2019

Continuing our write-ups from the Editors NSW November 2018 seminar Ethics in editing, this month we feature Rhonda Daniels’ keys to the benefits of ethical quoting. Rates, unrealistic deadlines and requests for sample edits all influence editors’ daily business decisions. Here is the outline of what Rhonda pinpointed on the day.

Dr Rhonda Daniels AE edits academic and research-related material in her business, Right with Rhonda, set up in 2013. She has presented three workshops for Editors NSW on the business of being a freelance editor, quoting practices and business websites. For the seminar, she focused on ethics in quoting, an

important consideration for many freelance editors who usually work in isolation and try to establish their own guidelines for their business practices. Rhonda’s presentation continued the recurring message from presenters at the seminar, that it is useful to ‘know what you don’t know’. There is, she believes, an ethical consideration to be

included in such plans as:• generating enquiries for your editing business• responding to enquiries• preparing quotes• setting hourly rates or total prices.The flow chart could look like this

Being mindful of yourself, fellow editors and the profession, and clients, as well as the prospects of short- and long-term work are important considerations, as Rhonda discussed the benefits of ethical quoting to:• help get the right work• create a quote that is fair for both you and the client• ensure a sustainable business• help minimise your business risk.Some ethical dilemmas (or not?) cover setting a low rate to

win work, being unrealistic about deadlines to secure work, or quoting without seeing the work. She included other problems such as responding to low client budgets and to requests for sample edits. All these decisions influence your business plan. Sometimes, too, you are competing with editors whose

mantra is ‘I can edit anything’. Better, said Rhonda, to be aware of your editing strengths and ideal clients, working to extend your areas of strength over time. Be clear in marketing about your skills, experience and capabilities and be conscious of your preferred work and clients.

EnquiryResponding to an enquiry is the first step in deciding the strategic benefits of a potential job. Is the work within your area of strength? Is it for an ideal client? Are you able to commit to the work? Is there long-term value – the work fits into your business plan?

If there are more ‘no’ answers than ‘yes’, at this point you could consider referring the client to another editor whose work you know, or to the IPEd Editors Directory. The important point is the decision that it is okay to say ‘no’ to potential work, scary as that may seem. Requests for sample edits are yet another ethical dilemma

for editors. These take time and are routinely unpaid. If the sample edit will get you on the books of an agency or contractor, if it is to test software versions or other technical issues perceived, or to help you estimate the time required for the job, you will probably say ‘yes’ to the request. If, however, the sample is too long, or does not show all your skills, if it will not help you get a job, if you are an experienced editor, or you suspect the client is a ‘red flag’, you should probably turn down the request.

QuotingIn preparing a quote for work, a clear outline of your understanding of the job can potentially save much angst. Be clear about:• what the job is, as you interpret it, highlighting services to

be provided in terms the client will understand and services not provided, such as formatting, footnotes, references• expected return time and deadlines• terms and conditions, including whether the price

includes or excludes GST• expected payment schedule and methods.On two of these …Rhonda suggests that often clients do not know or care

about the types of editing, per se: We have all heard ‘Oh, it just needs a quick edit’. A good practice can be to ask: ‘How long would you like me to spend on it?’, that is, define the job as you interpret it.There are few guidelines to editing rates (price) and you are

best served by knowing what affects your editing work rate. Do not compete on price; rather, highlight the value of your ability to solve the author’s problems.

Calculating the time to establish a rate for your editing work depends on some or all of the following:• type of editing• your experience• familiarity with the client and material• applying a style guide• the workload generally – urgency, time of day and

fatigue.Rhonda’s guideline is to take into account such elements as

the number of files and the format of the files; whether the author is a native English speaker; what reference software might be used; whether the content is a mix of Word only or Word with features such as Styles; and whether the content is text only or a mix of text, tables and graphics. The area of content also influences the time it will take to edit and so affects the quote: is it familiar or unfamiliar content?

Ethics in editing: part 3

Image: CC0

continued on page 6

6 March 2019

As you progress in your quoting practices, it can be useful to keep sample edits, where feasible, and to keep track of the time each job has taken. This gives you a record to use for future quotes. There are some editing time count apps such as Harvest and Toggl that can be useful. An article on the various apps and their benefits can be found at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/269991.Additionally, it is important to be aware of what your

hourly rate has to cover beyond the actual time taken to edit: sick leave, annual leave, personal/carers leave and superannuation, for instance. In a full-time role, employees receive 50 paid days per annum where they are not at work. Freelancers receive no pay on days they do not work. Be aware, too, of expenses such as professional

development, business development, insurance and the non-billable time of running your business. Non-billable does not mean non-paid time. The hourly rate

should factor in non-billable time. A rough guideline is one non-billable hour for every two billable hours. This should be accounted for in the hourly rate you set. Examples include:• responding to enquiries• preparing quotes• quarterly business activity statements (BAS) and other

tax requirements• professional development (attending workshops, learning

new skills, reading industry blogs and journals)• undertaking marketing and business development such

as contacting potential clients, updating your website or directory entry• maintaining home office and IT.

ClientsThere is an ethical question of whether you vary rates between clients. You might base different rates on the type of client (a willingness to pay quickly, for instance), the type of editing work involved, and whether the client values your services as ‘an investment, not an expense’. You could decide to offer a discount for a particular client.

If you do, it is beneficial to state the value of the discount on the quote and again on the invoice. Rhonda offered a useful case study for the ethics that come

into play when asked for a quote. Her example was of a student who asks for their paper or thesis to be edited but highlights the university will only pay the editor $43 per hour as an employee. The options she saw were:• accept the lower rate• accept the lower rate but increase the hours• refuse the work because of the low rate and explain why• quote a total price for the job not an hourly rate• be alert to risk and respond differently next time.Her overall advice is to be ethical in quoting at each step

(generating enquiries, responding to enquiries, preparing a quote and setting hourly rates or total prices) because ethical in the short term is ethical in the long term, and that is sustainable for you, your business and the profession.

Susie Pilkington

Image: Supplied by Linda Nix

continued from page 5

Editors from northern New South Wales have made lunch gatherings a quarterly event, organised by a different editor each time. In 2018 we met up in March, June, September and December 2018 in Coffs Harbour, Urunga, Bellingen and Armidale, respectively. We have an active list of 14 people now, with at least six (albeit a different six) able to make it each time.

The venue for our first lunch in 2019 (on 15 March) was the lovely Canopy Café at the Dorrigo Rainforest Centre, organised by Donella Andersen. The setting was very restful, the food fresh, the coffee nice and strong – and the conversation free-flowing. As most of us are freelancers, these lunches are a wonderful

opportunity to socialise and talk shop with other editors. We are already looking forward to the next one.

Speaking of which, the next lunch will be in June in Coffs Harbour, organised by

Hilary Cadman. Notices will be sent out closer to the time. If you think you will be

in the region, please feel free to join us.

Linda Nix

Left to right: Linda Nix, Hilary Cadman, Donella Andersen, Miriam Verbeek,

Jess Cox, Veronica Green.

Editors’ lunch at Dorrigo Image: CC0

7 March 2019

It must have been a busy committee meeting this month because our agendas have notes scribbled all over them. Much of the group discussion focused on our meetings and workshops. We have already noted the comments from the recent survey, [see also report on page 8], but this month we had a few light bulb moments as we navigated the calendar of each of these events. The standing-room-only success

of our March meeting gave us pause for thought on the benefits of presentations that clearly talk to fields editors can expand into in their editing work. We have decided to focus on this more in our topic choices. As always, we welcome suggestions for meeting topics and speakers; send your ideas to ednsw.meetings@iped-editors.org.

Our workshops advertising was also targeted for a revamp. You will soon see the changes in invitations, where we will highlight the specific benefits to editorial practices of each workshop, to help you more easily identify those that will be of most value to you.Our back issues of Blue Pencil (and

these go back to 1979 on our website) will soon be archived under the new National eDeposit (NED) scheme, https://ned.gov.au/, which is due to be launched this year. The scheme is a collaboration between national, state and territory libraries to preserve published electronic material. Once we have access to (and instructions for) the portal, we shall start loading our back issues of Blue Pencil and can give members details of the service.

The organisation of editors’ lunches continues with a planned Gosford meeting in May, a Coffs Harbour lunch in June (see article on page 6) and a Bowral gathering (in collaboration with Canberra Society of Editors) in September. Invitations will be sent by email once details are confirmed. It is hoped some of our regional, or travelling Sydney-based, members may be close enough to join in. So, it was an events-heavy meeting,

but it is useful to focus on the branch activities when we have the benefit of our collective committee minds in the room.

Susie Pilkington and Julie Ganner

From the committee

Images: CC0

Member discountsNew South Wales:Boomerang Books: free shipping to members. Apply the code on your membership card to receive the offer when you purchase online http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au.Abbey’s Bookshop: 10 per cent discount on books purchased in-store (present your membership card) 131 York Street, Sydney 2000 Phone (02) 9264 3111.Constant Reader Bookshop: 10 per cent discount on books purchased in-store (present your membership card)27 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest 2065 Phone: (02) 9436 3858 or (02) 9438 1763.Better Read than Dead Bookshop: 10 per cent discount on books purchased in-store (present your membership card)265 King Street, Newtown 2042 Phone: (02) 9557 8700.

Editors NSW membership cards are available on request. When you join or renew and would like to have a card to access the discounts listed here, please email ednsw.admin@iped-editors.org with your name and postal address.

National:Books+Publishing / Weekly Book Newsletter: 25 per cent discount on subscriptions.Macquarie Dictionary and Macquarie Thesaurus: up to 15 per cent discount on online subscriptions.Australian manual of scientific style: $10 discount ($60 to $50) for a subscription to Biotext’s online manual.PerfectIt: 30 per cent discount on subscription to PerfectIt Cloud (PC and Mac).Geoff Hart titles: up to 25 per cent discount on titles including Effective Onscreen Editing, 3rd edition.Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP): various discounts on online courses and conferences.Editors Canada: member rates on webinars, online training courses and conferences.Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA): member rates on webinars, online training courses and conferences.Capstone Editing: 10 per cent discount on ‘Your Editing Career Launched’, an intensive, four-month course. Cadman Training Services: 25 per cent discount on online PerfectIt courses.

To find out more or how to take advantage of these (national) offers, log in to the IPEd Member Portal, go to Resources for editors and click on the Member discounts tab.

8 March 2019

Workshop: ‘Word: intermediate to advanced’Friday, 15 March 20199.30 am to 4.30 pmUTS Short Courses, Level 7, UTS Building 10, 235 Jones Street, Ultimo (map)

If you have any suggestions for workshops that would interest you, please email your ideas to our workshop coordinator, Lilla Wendoloski, at ednsw.profdev@iped-editors.org. Remember, all workshops are first advertised via email,

so watch your inbox for the next professional development opportunities.

Lilla Wendoloski

Upcoming monthly meetingsOur 2019 monthly meeting lineup is almost complete. Here are the next few months’ talks and events.2 April: Educational publishing – Gurdish Gill, McGraw-Hill7 May: Australian Style – Adam Smith, Macquarie University4 June: Copyright and IP: what editors need to know – Olivia Lanchester, Australian Society of Authors. 2 July: mid-year dinner.

Caroline Birch

IPEd Webinar reminderIn case you want to discover or freshen-up your skills with stylesheets – the webinar presented by Dr Malini Devadas is available for purchase via the IPEd website.http://iped-editors.org/News_and_events/View_News/Style_Sheets_webinar_recording.aspx.

Professional development

POSTPO

NED

Thank you to everyone who filled out the professional development survey at the end of last year – we are very grateful to the 111 members who took the time to share their thoughts. Your ideas and contributions have provided an excellent window into members’ professional development needs as we build our schedule of workshops and meetings for 2019 and beyond.

WorkshopsMost respondents consider the topics and presenters to be the best aspects of the workshops. They also greatly value the discussions with other editors generated by presenters. Skills development is on the top of the ‘wish list’ for future

workshops. There is strong interest in editing nonfiction books, editing web materials, building business skills, researching and fact checking. Some respondents expressed interest in half-day and

Saturday workshops. The committee will investigate all these options over the coming months.Online learning is also an area of interest. Webinar

development is a focus of the IPEd Standing Committee on Professional Development, now headed by the very able Linda Nix. A webinar on style sheets is available on the IPEd website, and we look forward to more progress there in 2019.Some respondents asked about lowering the attendance fee

for the workshops. The fee covers the costs of running the workshop only, and is on a par with other IPEd branches. In fact, most of our workshops only just ‘break even’. If you value the workshops, please support them so that we can continue to offer them.

Remember also that the workshop fee may be tax deductible (check your tax obligations), and that the training counts towards reaccreditation for IPEd accredited editors.

MeetingsThe survey suggested that members most value speaker meetings that discuss specific genres of editing. After hearing from speakers in the past year on editing memoirs and self-published texts, as well as working with a literary agent, we had a very popular talk on technical editing in March and look forward to the next one on educational publishing in April. We will look at inviting more speakers to future meetings who can speak about other types of editing.Members also asked us to offer meetings focusing on

business skills for freelancers and small business owners, such as marketing, setting rates, insurance and superannuation. In addition, members are keen to learn more about growing their businesses by taking advantage of new opportunities and growth areas in the industry. We will ensure that future meetings address some of these subjects. We understand that a number of members find it difficult to

get to meetings regularly. Unfortunately, for cost and privacy reasons, we are unable to video our meetings. However, we always write up a detailed summary of the content of each meeting in Blue Pencil, so all members can benefit from the information shared by our speakers.

Caroline Birch and Lilla Wendoloski

Professional development survey 2018 report

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9 March 2019

Editors NSW 2018–19 committee President: Julie Ganner

Email: ednsw.president@iped-editors.org

Vice-president: Zoë Hale Email: ednsw.vicepres@iped-editors.org

Secretary: Sally Asnicar

Email: ednsw.secretary@iped-editors.org

Budget officer: Russell Noakes

Email: ednsw.budget@iped-editors.org

IPEd councillor: Owen Kavanagh

Email: cr.ednsw@iped-editors.orgAccreditation Board representative (NSW): Linda Nix

Email: ednsw.ab@iped-editors.orgMeetings coordinator: Caroline Birch

Email: ednsw.meetings@iped-editors.org

Workshop coordinator: Lilla Wendoloski Email: ednsw.profdev@iped-editors.org

Membership liaison officer: Katrina Gibson

Email: ednsw.memberliaison@iped-editors.org

Mentoring coordinator: Shannon Kelly

Email: shannon.tyler.kelly@gmail.com

Social media coordinators: Katrina Gibson and Russell Noakes Email: ednsw.online@iped-editors.org

Newsletter editor: Elisabeth Thomas

Email: ednsw.news@iped-editors.org

Office manager: Susie Pilkington

Email: ednsw.admin@iped-editors.org

Editors NSWPO Box 828, Willoughby NSW 2068 Voicemail: (02) 9294 4999http://www.editorsnsw.com

© 2019 Editors NSWISSN: 2202-1361 (Online)

Blue PencilEditor: Elisabeth ThomasAssistants: Sally Asnicar and Zoë Hale.Blue Pencil is available in interactive digital format (PDF). Open with Adobe Acrobat Reader to get the best results. Published: generally 11 issues a year (combined December–January issue).Your comments and contributions are welcome. Post them to the Editor, Blue Pencil, Editors NSW, PO Box 828, Willoughby NSW 2068, or email the editor at ednsw.news@iped-editors.org.

Copy deadline for the April issue is Friday, 12 April 2019The views expressed in the articles and letters, or the material contained in any advertisement or attachment, are those of individual authors, not of Editors NSW.

Advertising ratesFull page $375; half page $200; one-third page $125; quarter page $100; one-sixth page $75 (half of one column). Circulation: approximately 400. Please note that the committee reserves the right to decide whether advertisements are appropriate for this newsletter.

MembershipEditors NSW is a branch of Institute of Professional Editors Limited.Details of memberships are available on the IPEd website http://iped-editors.org.

Professional listingUse IPEd’s national Editors Directory (ED) http://iped-editors.org/Find_an_editor.aspx for professional members.

Committee meetingsAll members are welcome to attend Editors NSW committee meetings, generally held on the second Tuesday of each month. Please contact the office manager for details if you wish to attend the next meeting.

IPEd contactsChief Executive Officer, ceo@iped-editors.orgCommunication Officer, communication@iped-editors.orgFinance Officer, finance@iped-editors.orgMembership Officer, members@iped-editors.orgCompany Secretary, secretary@iped-editors.orgAdministration Officer, admin@iped-editors.org

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