I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a professional copy editor for a medical journal, so my job is making sure there are no errors in written work. But I also find it dismaying how many people seem to use correct punctuation and grammar as a cudgel against others and a way to make themselves feel superior. There's often a tone of boasting in these discussions I find extremely off-putting. I never point out errors I see in the wild. I tell people I don't correct grammar and punctuation unless I'm getting paid for it. And when I taught English, I always told my students to remember that this is not a moral issue and knowing what is right does not make you a better person. Some people seem to forget that.
That said, I've assessed copyediting tests for people applying for freelance jobs, and the number of errors I've seen in work by people who call themselves professional editors is appalling. It is more difficult than you would think to find a competent copy editor. The good ones also cost money, something a lot of literary journals don't have much of. Yes, it is distracting to find a lot of errors in published work, but there may be more going on than sloppiness. (The book "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" has so many errors, there is even a New Yorker article about it.)
BTW, putting commas outside quotation marks is correct in British English, so the person doing that might just be following British rules.
I appreciate this piece and find it very relatable. And I agree with Carol Coven Grannick that you are being generous in calling all these errors "typos". MUDFISH took some of my work for a recent issue whose printing was much delayed, and there were three errors in my two poems. An error in a short poem can ruin the whole thing and that's what happened. I don't know about the rest of the poems since I hadn't seen them before they were in MUDFISH. This used to be a lovely journal. Since the editor had sent numerous emails about how the issue would be published "soon" and was busy advertising her own book by the time I saw the errors, I didn't bother to report them. Maybe I should have but I'd lost confidence in her.
I'm a professional copy editor, and I notice typos—in menus, on signs, in books, in emails, on websites, all the places where, in order to save time and money, there are no copy editors and proof readers on hand. If the source has pretensions to sophistication and discernment, a typo is very off-putting. As is poor-quality bloated, clichéd writing generally. But if the source is informal, ephemeral, modest, for small, maybe internal audiences, I'm not so harsh. Many writers never learned much in the way of grammar or punctuation, and don't have a style manual to refer to. I did once advise a cleaning service to fix their typos and bad grammar, saying it reflected badly on their attention to detail and made them look amateur. They ended up changing the announcements.
Hi Jon, I am definitely of your school of thought on this one. Heck, I correct typos in library books. If I don't have a pen next to my bed when I'm reading, I try to lull myself to sleep remembering the page numbers with the typos so I can correct them first thing. I would not submit to a lit mag with obvious typos. Not very relaxed about it, actually ...
I had a typo appear in a story even after I corrected it in the galley. Then the same story was chosen for the Pushcart Prize anthology. Okay, I thought, now's my chance to fix that typo. Then somehow a completely new typo appeared in the anthology that was not in the galley. Maybe one day the story will be published clean?
You just have to laugh, I guess. However, when editors say our submissions must be polished while their websites and journals aren't, I find it disheartening. Physician, heal thyself.
Yes. Although I believe you are being generous in calling all of these things "typos". Even though my brain has very occasionally missed an actual typo when I proof something for the 10th time, I also grew up in a time when proofreading and proper word choice/spelling was sacred to the profession, certainly part of the training, practice, and expectation of elementary school papers (handwritten in my day - and misspelled words counted against your grade), the high school newspaper, and more. But spoken language has "relaxed" also. When I hear journalists begin their reports with, "Yeah, so-and-so...." I cringe.
I see a comma splice and a dangling (misplaced) modifier, Jon. 😊 Not that these are moral issues, I hasten to add, per other comments. (<--sentence fragment) In my defense, I've been a professional academic editor, and I teach college writing. Punctuation rules are sometimes arbitrary; holistically, they may not matter. A dangling modifier, however, can impede clarity. Most people probably read on by. I know I'm sensitive to comma splices precisely because I lost a letter grade (!) on an essay once for committing one (revealing my age, here, I realize). You're welcome to message me if you'd like for me to point out these places in your piece, which I did enjoy--and, obviously, can relate to . . . (can I end with a preposition? I mean, I *can* . . .).
Certainly, less emphasis is put (<--passive voice) on grammatical correctness and more on content in the classroom these days, which is in keeping with composition theory. On the other hand, I've heard faculty in other disciplines complain that their students can't write correct sentences. Having taught writing for 30 or so years, I can attest that different approaches come and go. I'm not a stickler in the classroom, for many reasons. Like you, though, I would hesitate to submit to a mag riddled with errors, even if only typos, on prominent pages--as in, I don't.
I'm a member of the "cringe" tribe. Typos throw me, and yes, I know they're like weeds. You pull one and another pops up. They irk me especially in books published by the big 5 presses (is it still 5?). I'm a lot more easy going on small presses and indie publishers. I know they are minimally staffed. The worst are the ones I find in my own writing, always after it's published, rats! But there are limits to my easygoingness. At some point it's plain lazy and disrespectful of the reader and the material being published. Newspapers are huge offenders. If nobody bothers to check spelling and grammar, who's checking the facts????
At Codex, the book fair for art books, I picked up a handsome print of a scrub jay. We have scrub jay neighbors who we sometimes feed, so I was tempted to buy the print -- until I saw that the printmaker had called the birds “theives.” The printmaker and I had been making conversation about scrub jays, so I pointed at the misspelled word and said, “Typo.”
“You’re the first person to notice that,” she said.
“Or I am the first person rude enough to mention it.”
Two years ago, I was pretty frustrated that my chapbook collaborator would not participate in proofreading our Hallowe'en poetry book before it went to press. Basically, he skimmed it and told the publisher it was okay to proceed. Yikes.
[He would not participate in the marketing either - - which is whole other story.]
Naturally, I proofread his poems as thoroughly as my own.
Why do I want readers to find irritating typos in a book with my name on it?
And, yes, I have marked errors in other people's writing when we are in the same issue / anthology, passing along corrections to the editor in the spirit of goodwill. I am not getting paid to do this but, if it improves a reader's experience and if I can help out, I'm not going to stay silent about random typos.
Bravo, Jon. I agree, an editor's prime qualification is the ability and willingness to correct usage and typo errors. Other things too, but these sort of punch the reader in the eye. True, among friends and peers, one has to be really tactful about corrections. It's like giving advice: only when requested, give advice. I love to learn, but too many people have been abused and belittled, and associate being given information with bullying. But the point that typos on a site are a symptom of ignorance and carelessness, and a writer offering work may well have regrets when mangling results from putting clean writing into the hands of barbarians...As a connoisseur of good advice, I will remember this!
May I respectfully point out that in your article you have used ‘stationary’, I.e. not in motion, when you mean ‘stationery’ as in paper. Grandma Chamberlain will be spinning in her grave!
Jon, I have the same hard wiring and appreciate your piece. Some combination of generation, past employment/identity as professional editor and English teacher? Misspellings and punctuation errors (those that are clearly not simply unconventional or creative choices) interfere with my reading. I appreciate the comments not this a moral issue, and at the same time I think that careful editing and proofreading are a sign of thoroughness and care. I decided not to submit a chapbook manuscript to a potentially remunerative chapbook contest and one promising very wide distribution because of a typo on the back jacket of one chapbook in the series.
I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a professional copy editor for a medical journal, so my job is making sure there are no errors in written work. But I also find it dismaying how many people seem to use correct punctuation and grammar as a cudgel against others and a way to make themselves feel superior. There's often a tone of boasting in these discussions I find extremely off-putting. I never point out errors I see in the wild. I tell people I don't correct grammar and punctuation unless I'm getting paid for it. And when I taught English, I always told my students to remember that this is not a moral issue and knowing what is right does not make you a better person. Some people seem to forget that.
That said, I've assessed copyediting tests for people applying for freelance jobs, and the number of errors I've seen in work by people who call themselves professional editors is appalling. It is more difficult than you would think to find a competent copy editor. The good ones also cost money, something a lot of literary journals don't have much of. Yes, it is distracting to find a lot of errors in published work, but there may be more going on than sloppiness. (The book "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" has so many errors, there is even a New Yorker article about it.)
BTW, putting commas outside quotation marks is correct in British English, so the person doing that might just be following British rules.
I appreciate this piece and find it very relatable. And I agree with Carol Coven Grannick that you are being generous in calling all these errors "typos". MUDFISH took some of my work for a recent issue whose printing was much delayed, and there were three errors in my two poems. An error in a short poem can ruin the whole thing and that's what happened. I don't know about the rest of the poems since I hadn't seen them before they were in MUDFISH. This used to be a lovely journal. Since the editor had sent numerous emails about how the issue would be published "soon" and was busy advertising her own book by the time I saw the errors, I didn't bother to report them. Maybe I should have but I'd lost confidence in her.
Check carefully, but even then, caveat submitter.
My last name appears misspelled, in print, in the latest issue of a certain small university journal out of North Carolina.
No, they didn't send galleys.
I'm a professional copy editor, and I notice typos—in menus, on signs, in books, in emails, on websites, all the places where, in order to save time and money, there are no copy editors and proof readers on hand. If the source has pretensions to sophistication and discernment, a typo is very off-putting. As is poor-quality bloated, clichéd writing generally. But if the source is informal, ephemeral, modest, for small, maybe internal audiences, I'm not so harsh. Many writers never learned much in the way of grammar or punctuation, and don't have a style manual to refer to. I did once advise a cleaning service to fix their typos and bad grammar, saying it reflected badly on their attention to detail and made them look amateur. They ended up changing the announcements.
Hi Jon, I am definitely of your school of thought on this one. Heck, I correct typos in library books. If I don't have a pen next to my bed when I'm reading, I try to lull myself to sleep remembering the page numbers with the typos so I can correct them first thing. I would not submit to a lit mag with obvious typos. Not very relaxed about it, actually ...
I had a typo appear in a story even after I corrected it in the galley. Then the same story was chosen for the Pushcart Prize anthology. Okay, I thought, now's my chance to fix that typo. Then somehow a completely new typo appeared in the anthology that was not in the galley. Maybe one day the story will be published clean?
You just have to laugh, I guess. However, when editors say our submissions must be polished while their websites and journals aren't, I find it disheartening. Physician, heal thyself.
Yes. Although I believe you are being generous in calling all of these things "typos". Even though my brain has very occasionally missed an actual typo when I proof something for the 10th time, I also grew up in a time when proofreading and proper word choice/spelling was sacred to the profession, certainly part of the training, practice, and expectation of elementary school papers (handwritten in my day - and misspelled words counted against your grade), the high school newspaper, and more. But spoken language has "relaxed" also. When I hear journalists begin their reports with, "Yeah, so-and-so...." I cringe.
I see a comma splice and a dangling (misplaced) modifier, Jon. 😊 Not that these are moral issues, I hasten to add, per other comments. (<--sentence fragment) In my defense, I've been a professional academic editor, and I teach college writing. Punctuation rules are sometimes arbitrary; holistically, they may not matter. A dangling modifier, however, can impede clarity. Most people probably read on by. I know I'm sensitive to comma splices precisely because I lost a letter grade (!) on an essay once for committing one (revealing my age, here, I realize). You're welcome to message me if you'd like for me to point out these places in your piece, which I did enjoy--and, obviously, can relate to . . . (can I end with a preposition? I mean, I *can* . . .).
Certainly, less emphasis is put (<--passive voice) on grammatical correctness and more on content in the classroom these days, which is in keeping with composition theory. On the other hand, I've heard faculty in other disciplines complain that their students can't write correct sentences. Having taught writing for 30 or so years, I can attest that different approaches come and go. I'm not a stickler in the classroom, for many reasons. Like you, though, I would hesitate to submit to a mag riddled with errors, even if only typos, on prominent pages--as in, I don't.
I'm a member of the "cringe" tribe. Typos throw me, and yes, I know they're like weeds. You pull one and another pops up. They irk me especially in books published by the big 5 presses (is it still 5?). I'm a lot more easy going on small presses and indie publishers. I know they are minimally staffed. The worst are the ones I find in my own writing, always after it's published, rats! But there are limits to my easygoingness. At some point it's plain lazy and disrespectful of the reader and the material being published. Newspapers are huge offenders. If nobody bothers to check spelling and grammar, who's checking the facts????
I think I see a typo -- when you write the word "stationary" I think you are referring to "stationery" spelled with an "ery" as in writing paper ??
At Codex, the book fair for art books, I picked up a handsome print of a scrub jay. We have scrub jay neighbors who we sometimes feed, so I was tempted to buy the print -- until I saw that the printmaker had called the birds “theives.” The printmaker and I had been making conversation about scrub jays, so I pointed at the misspelled word and said, “Typo.”
“You’re the first person to notice that,” she said.
“Or I am the first person rude enough to mention it.”
Two years ago, I was pretty frustrated that my chapbook collaborator would not participate in proofreading our Hallowe'en poetry book before it went to press. Basically, he skimmed it and told the publisher it was okay to proceed. Yikes.
[He would not participate in the marketing either - - which is whole other story.]
Naturally, I proofread his poems as thoroughly as my own.
Why do I want readers to find irritating typos in a book with my name on it?
And, yes, I have marked errors in other people's writing when we are in the same issue / anthology, passing along corrections to the editor in the spirit of goodwill. I am not getting paid to do this but, if it improves a reader's experience and if I can help out, I'm not going to stay silent about random typos.
Bravo, Jon. I agree, an editor's prime qualification is the ability and willingness to correct usage and typo errors. Other things too, but these sort of punch the reader in the eye. True, among friends and peers, one has to be really tactful about corrections. It's like giving advice: only when requested, give advice. I love to learn, but too many people have been abused and belittled, and associate being given information with bullying. But the point that typos on a site are a symptom of ignorance and carelessness, and a writer offering work may well have regrets when mangling results from putting clean writing into the hands of barbarians...As a connoisseur of good advice, I will remember this!
May I respectfully point out that in your article you have used ‘stationary’, I.e. not in motion, when you mean ‘stationery’ as in paper. Grandma Chamberlain will be spinning in her grave!
Jon, I have the same hard wiring and appreciate your piece. Some combination of generation, past employment/identity as professional editor and English teacher? Misspellings and punctuation errors (those that are clearly not simply unconventional or creative choices) interfere with my reading. I appreciate the comments not this a moral issue, and at the same time I think that careful editing and proofreading are a sign of thoroughness and care. I decided not to submit a chapbook manuscript to a potentially remunerative chapbook contest and one promising very wide distribution because of a typo on the back jacket of one chapbook in the series.
Kudos to Jon & Becky...no typos or grammatical/punctuation errors in the piece! (Though I'll admit that my knowledge of hyphen usage is shaky.)