{"id":842,"date":"2011-06-04T18:11:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T22:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/?p=842"},"modified":"2011-06-04T18:11:22","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T22:11:22","slug":"the-benefits-of-copyediting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/06\/04\/the-benefits-of-copyediting\/","title":{"rendered":"The benefits of copyediting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"dictionary<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dictionary and red pencil, photo by novii, on Flickr<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Sanford Thatcher has written a valuable, if anecdotal, analysis of some papers residing on Harvard\u2019s DASH repository<\/a> (Copyediting\u2019s Role in an Open-Access World,\u00a0Against the Grain<\/em>, volume 23, number 2, April 2011, pages 30-34), in an effort to get at the differences between author manuscripts and the corresponding published versions that have benefited from copyediting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat may we conclude from this analysis?\u201d he asks. \u201cBy and large, the copyediting did not result in any major improvements of the manuscripts as they appear at the DASH site.\u201d He finds that \u201cthe vast majority of changes made were for the sake of enforcing a house formatting style and cleaning up a variety of inconsistencies and infelicities, none of which reached into the substance of the writing or affected the meaning other than by adding a bit more clarity here and there\u201d and expects therefore that the DASH versions are \u201cgood enough\u201d for many scholarly and educational uses.<\/p>\n

Although more substantive errors did occur in the articles he examined, especially in the area of citation and quotation accuracy, they were typically carried over to the published versions as well. He notes that \u201cThese are just the kinds of errors that are seldom caught by copyeditors.\u201d<\/p>\n

One issue that goes unmentioned in the column is the occasional introduction of errors by the typesetting and copyediting process itself. This used to happen with great frequency in the bad old days when publishers rekeyed papers to typeset them. It was especially problematic in fields like my own, in which papers tend to have large amounts of mathematical notation, which the typesetting staff had little clue about the niceties of. These days more and more journals allow authors to submit LaTeX<\/a> source for their articles, which the publisher merely applies the house style file<\/a> to. This practice has been a tremendous boon to the accuracy and typesetting quality of mathematical articles. Still, copyediting can introduce substantive errors in the process. Here\u2019s a nice example<\/a> from a paper in the Communications of the ACM<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides getting more data, faster, we also now use much more sophisticated learning algorithms. For instance, algorithms based on logistic regression and that support vector machines<\/em> can reduce by half the amount of spam that evades filtering, compared to Naive Bayes.\u201d (Joshua Goodman, Gordon V. Cormack, and David Heckerman,\u00a0Spam and the ongoing battle for the inbox<\/a>, Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery<\/em>, volume 50, number 2, 2007, page 27.\u00a0\u00a0Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n

Any computer scientist would immediately see that the sentence as published makes no sense. There is no such thing as a \u201cvector machine\u201d and in any case algorithms don\u2019t support them.\u00a0My guess is that the author manuscript had the sentence \u201cFor instance, algorithms based on logistic regression and support vector machines<\/em> can reduce by half…\u201d \u2014 without the word that<\/em>.\u00a0The copyeditor apparently didn\u2019t realize that the noun phrase support vector machine<\/a><\/em> is a term of art in the machine learning literature; the word support<\/em> was not intended to be a verb here. (Do a Google search for vector machine<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0Every hit has the phrase in the context of the term support vector machine, <\/em>at least for the pages I looked at before boredom set in.)<\/p>\n

Presumably, the authors didn\u2019t catch the error introduced by the copyeditor. The occurrence of errors of this sort is no argument against copyediting, but it does demonstrate that it should be viewed as a collaborative activity between copyeditors and authors, and better tools for collaboratively vetting changes would surely be helpful.<\/p>\n

In any case, back to Dr. Thatcher’s DASH study.\u00a0Ellen Duranceau at\u00a0MIT Libraries News<\/a> views the study as \u201csupport for the MIT faculty\u2019s approach to sharing their articles through their\u00a0Open Access Policy<\/a>\u201d, and the same could be said for Harvard<\/a> as well. However, before we declare victory, it\u2019s worth noting that Dr. Thatcher did find differences between the versions, and in general the edits were beneficial.<\/p>\n

The title of Dr. Thatcher\u2019s column gets at the subtext of his conclusions, that in an open-access world, we\u2019d have to live with whatever errors copyediting would have caught, since we\u2019d be reading uncopyedited manuscripts. But open-access journals can and do provide copyediting as one of their services, and to the extent that doing so improves the quality of the articles they publish and thus the imprimatur of the journal, it has a secondary benefit to the journal of improving its brand and its attractiveness to authors.<\/p>\n

I admit that I\u2019m a bit of a grammar nerd<\/a> (with what I think is a nuanced view<\/a> that manages to be linguistically descriptivist<\/a> and editorially prescriptivist<\/a> at the same time)\u00a0and so I think that copyediting can have substantial value. (My own writing was probably most improved by Savel Kliachko, an outstanding editor at my first employer SRI International<\/a>.) To my mind, the question is how to provide editing services in a rational way. Given that the costs of copyediting are independent of the number of accesses, and that the value accrues in large part to the author (by making him or her look like less of a halfwit for exhibiting \u201cinconsistencies and infelicities\u201d and occasionally more substantive errors), it seems reasonable that authors ought to pay publishers a fee for these services. And that is exactly what happens in open-access journals. Authors can decide\u00a0if the bargain is a good one\u00a0on the basis of the services that the publisher provides, including copyediting, relative to the fee the publisher charges. As a result, publishers are given incentive to provide the best services for the dollar. A good deal all around.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, in a world of open-access journals the issue of divergence between author manuscripts and publisher versions disappears, since readers are no longer denied access to the definitive published version. Dr. Thatcher concludes that the benefits of copyediting were not as large as he would have thought. Nonetheless, however limited the benefits might be, properly viewed those benefits argue for open access.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dictionary and red pencil, photo by novii, on Flickr Sanford Thatcher has written a valuable, if anecdotal, analysis of some papers residing on Harvard\u2019s DASH repository (Copyediting\u2019s Role in an Open-Access World,\u00a0Against the Grain, volume 23, number 2, April 2011, pages 30-34), in an effort to get at the differences between author manuscripts and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[618,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-access","category-scholarly-communication"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pLfN-dA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":456,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2010\/05\/27\/green-oa-as-appropriation\/","url_meta":{"origin":842,"position":0},"title":"Green OA as “appropriation”","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Thursday, May 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sandy Thatcher feels \"very uneasy about the massive postings of Green OA articles at sites like Harvard\u2019s, which given that university\u2019s great prestige may well lead to the widespread appropriation of those versions by scholars who find it easier to access them OA than to hunt down (and perhaps pay\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":729,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/03\/12\/the-importance-of-dark-deposit\/","url_meta":{"origin":842,"position":1},"title":"The importance of dark deposit","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Saturday, March 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hubble's Dark Matter Map from flickr user NASA Goddard Photo and Video, used by permission The Harvard repository, DASH, comprises several thousand articles in all fields of scholarship. These articles are stored and advertised through an item page providing metadata \u2014 such as title, author, citation, abstract, and link to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1319,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/04\/27\/the-new-harvard-library-open-metadata-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":842,"position":2},"title":"The new Harvard Library open metadata policy","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Friday, April 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cOld Books\u201d photo by flickr user Iguana Joe, used by permission (CC-by-nc) Earlier this week, the Harvard Library announced its new open metadata policy, which was approved by the Library Board earlier this year, along with an initial two metadata releases. The policy is\u00a0straightforward: The Harvard Library provides open access\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "libraries"","block_context":{"text":"libraries","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/libraries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1691,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2013\/02\/28\/open-letter-on-the-white-house-public-access-directive\/","url_meta":{"origin":842,"position":3},"title":"Open letter on the White House public access directive","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Thursday, February 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"...White House... \"White House\" image by flickr user Trevor McGoldrick. As has been widely reported, this past Friday the White House directed essentially all federal funding agencies to develop open access policies over the next few months. I wrote the letter below to be forwarded to faculty at the Harvard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":206,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2009\/06\/24\/206\/","url_meta":{"origin":842,"position":4},"title":"Institute of Education Sciences has an open access policy","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Wednesday, June 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't seen it discussed anywhere, but it seems that the Institute of Education Sciences in the Department of Education is now requiring its funded research be made openly available through the ERIC repository. The policy looks analogous to that of the NIH.\u00a0 The pertinent clause from the current IES\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1515,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/09\/17\/is-the-harvard-open-access-policy-legally-sound\/","url_meta":{"origin":842,"position":5},"title":"Is the Harvard open-access policy legally sound?","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Monday, September 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"...evidenced by a written instrument... \"To Sign a Contract 3\" image by shho. Used by permission. The idea behind rights-retention open-access policies is, as this year\u2019s OA Week slogan goes, to \u201cset the default to open access\u201d. Traditionally, authors retained rights to their scholarly articles only if they expressly negotiated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}