Proofreaders marks / Editors marks

[metro698608]

Good morning guys.  I want to learn the standard editors/proofreaders marks, but it seems everywhere I turn, there are different variations.  I see there are editors marks in the back of my AP stylebook, but no proofreaders marks.  Also, the list of AP editors marks seems to be incomplete as compared to some of the lists of editors marks I find online.  Are there more than one style of proofreaders/editors marks, or is there a standard set of marks that someone could direct me to?  Thanks very much for any help you might be able to offer.

[Cory Emberson]

Hi - every major stylebook will have some variations, so it's a good idea to become familiar with as many as you can.

I found an interesting website that shows the marks, and if you mouse over the mark, it will display a little window with the mark used in context.

http://www.eeicom.com/staffing/marks.html

Good luck!

best,
Cory

[apeman33]

I'm the only one in my tiny shop with a journalism degree of any sort. If I used those marks, no one would know what I mean. About the only thing I do is put a slash through upper-case letters that need to be turned back to lower-case. Everything else, I just circle it and write what it should be in the margin of the dummy or go up to the people who need to know and explain what should be changed.

[buckweaver]

"Official" editors' marks is a load of crap. The key to editing is making sure whoever has to make those changes (either the writer or another editor/designer) understands the changes that should be made. You can use any mark you like, insert your edits in any margin, as long as that person can make sense of the edit.

If you use official proofreading marks but nobody can understand them, then you're not doing your job as an editor.

I got into a legendary debate with an out-of-touch J-school professor about this once. He blamed it on the person who didn't understand the editing marks. I argued that it didn't matter who got it wrong; the job of an editor is to communicate the changes effectively and using archaic marks that few understand defeats the purpose of editing.

[Piotr Rasputin]

Agree with buckweaver.

Pretty editing marks are for school. Few use them past their college editing classes.

[mustangj17]

Learned it in high school journalism and it worked great because we all learned the same way.

In college and even now, most the editing is done with the computer so it doesn't matter.

Unless it's a page proof- in which case, you are better off just to make sure everyone knows damn well what needs to be corrected so it doesn't go into print.

[captzulu]

Agree with buckweaver.

Pretty editing marks are for school. Few use them past their college editing classes.

Ditto. I only use a few basic marks, like capitalize, linebreak, and insert letter. Anything more complicated than that, I just circle and write it out on the side.