Copyeditors and Readers & Writers

Week One

Agenda for the Week of January 18

  1. Read through course policies & calendar
  2. Set up course technologies and accounts

Copyediting Basics

Week Two

Agenda for the Week of January 25

  1. Project One description and requirements
  2. The basic purposes and techniques of copyediting
  3. Course work-submission procedures
  4. Creating shareable links in Dropbox or Google Drive

Punctuation

Week Three

Agenda for the Week of February 1

  1. Fundamental punctuation marks and their uses

Spelling, Capitalization

Week Four

Agenda for the Week of February 8

  1. Spelling, including variant spellings within and between American and British English
  2. Capitalization of proper nouns and the authority of style references

Numbers and Numerals; Abbreviations

Week Five

Agenda for the Week of February 15

  1. Numbers and numerals
  2. Abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms

Grammar I: Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives

Week Six

Agenda for the Week of February 22

  1. Basic grammar: nouns, pronouns, and adjectives

Grammar II: Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions; Conjunctions

Week Seven

Agenda for the Week of March 1

  1. Project Two description and requirements
  2. Basic grammar: verbs, adverbs, and prepositions
  3. Conjunctions, clauses, and sentence construction

Errors and Usage

Week Eight

Agenda for the Week of March 8

  1. Common grammatical errors and their fancy names
  2. Usage guides and dictionaries

Catch-up and Work Week

Week Nine

Agenda for the Week of March 15

  1. Q&A over material covered so far

Figures and Tables; Mathematical Formulas

Week Ten

Agenda for the Week of March 22

  1. Figures: photographs, illustrations, and other works of art
  2. Tables: data, charts, graphs, and other visualizations
  3. Representing and copyediting mathematical formulas in manuscripts

Quotations and Dialogue

Week Eleven

Agenda for the Week of March 29

  1. Quotation of written and spoken material
  2. Dialogue

Citations and References I: CMS Note Style and Bibliography

Week Twelve

Agenda for the Week of April 5

  1. Project Three description and requirements
  2. Basic, shared components of citation styles
  3. Note-style references and bibliography in CMS

Citations and References II: CMS Author-Date References

Week Thirteen

Agenda for the Week of April 12

  1. CMS author-date reference style

Proofreading, Indexes

Week Fourteen

Agenda for the Week of April 19

  1. Proofreading and its differences from copyediting
  2. Creating indexes from page proofs

Copyediting Professionally

Week Fifteen

Agenda for the Week of April 26

  1. Professional practices and ethics for working copyeditors
  2. Freelancing as a copyeditor

Work Week

Week Sixteen

Agenda for the Week of May 3

  1. Final project questions