1. What is the official name of your profession, according to your work book?
Literary editor. I work with several publishing houses at once, including Eksmo, Astrel and others. I am a freelancer, which, as a rule, it is not customary to talk about in publishing houses, but they always exist.
2. Are there other names for it, less formal or alternative ones?
Usually they just call “red”)
3. What are your main responsibilities, the most important and irreplaceable, for which they hired you, and not a random person from the street?
I am the same person who makes candy out of a book. Proofreading a book for typos is not enough. Unfortunately, today most people no longer have such knowledge in native speech, that they have to “clean up” not only grammatical and punctuation errors, but also syntax, vocabulary and style.
4. What do you do in addition to these duties at work, without which your work will be considered incomplete, fined, or simply reprimanded?
I am required to keep a special Excel file into which information is entered on authors, their books, and the number of characters (in publishing houses the measure is not pages at all, as with ordinary people, but author’s sheets, we call them “alki”; an author’s sheet has 40,000 characters with spaces; the average starting length of a novel is 5 alok, that is, 200,000 characters, and most often 10 alok).
I participate in meetings with the editor-in-chief when I need to discuss the plan for the near future, find material (despite the huge volumes of books being published, there are often not enough authors and they need to be found), discuss the size of fees and the number of author's copies.
I also need to contact the author, clarify the edits, correct the suggestions he makes and insert them into the text. I have two proofreaders under my supervision, who usually do the most basic proofreading - for typos and obvious errors. They also need to be contacted and their work monitored.
I also contact translators if I cannot independently understand the source term or the wording in the translation raises my doubts.
Well, the most pleasant part, perhaps: I am in contact with graphic designers)
5. What else do you voluntarily do at work that no one forced you to do and no one will scold you for stopping doing it, but you continue to do it anyway?
Actually, I make detailed proofreading when I have time, although I may not do this: the proofreader goes through the text again after me.
I’m also never too lazy to add a small glossary at the end of the book if the terms or words in the book are not commonly used.
I try to handle the text as carefully as possible and ask the author, at first glance, little things. (For example, the editor-in-chief may not like the hero’s name, and he will ask to change it - we sit together with the author, look for options based on the meaning of the names, or fight to the last for the original version.)
6. What would you like to do at this job, but it’s impossible?
I would like to change more than half of the editorial and proofreading staff, but I work as a freelancer and have few rights)
7. Can you describe your potential career path?
Being on staff, a person can quite realistically rise to editor-in-chief in 5 years and acquire his own department ( science fiction take over everything, for example, or the educational and methodological department), and after some time it is possible to actually replace the Chief Editor Himself, or go free and open your own publishing house.
8. What is the pinnacle of excellence in your profession?
Literacy, good use of language, contact with people. The ability to determine from the first lines of a cover letter whether the attachment is worth reading. The ability to feel a bestseller in an unknown text by an author from Uryupinsk, push it over the heads of the strong middle peasants, with whom they willingly work, because they buy them, because they have known them for a long time (and this is 95% of the segment!!!), and push it onto the shelves with promotion. The ability to write a refusal after which a person will fight even more fiercely for the right to be on the bookshelf in the store. The ability to turn a mediocre text with errors into a beautiful novel. Well, and many other similar skills... And my personal reward is the joy of the readers and the pride of the authors. I never wondered if there was an award for a literary editor...
9. Describe your workplace.
I work at home, and at home I have computers, a table, an armchair, a refrigerator, a bicycle and other joys of life)
10. Describe the jobs of your colleagues.
80% of my colleagues work the same way as me. And we are together 8 hours a day on Skype, ICQ, or other instant messengers.
11. Is there something that you lack for work, but the situation is not expected to improve in the near future?
I don't have enough time because I've been studying lately.
12. Describe your daily routine.
A plus, but also a serious minus of working from home: your working day begins as soon as you get out of bed. Well, it may not end at 18:00 according to schedule. I may forget to have lunch, or forget about gymnastics...
13. How effective is your working day?
I plan my own working day, so all the time that I decide to devote to work, I devote to work: at least 1 hour, at least 21.
14. If you could go back to the moment when you first started looking for this job, and knew about it what you know now, would you still choose it?
Undoubtedly)
15. Are you satisfied with your salary?
Its size is okay: I get as much as I read. There is only one problem: payments may float.
16. As a child, did you dream of this job or some other?
As a child, I dreamed of becoming a writer. But for some reason, he became the one who works with them instead.
17. To perform your work or fill your position you need special education and basic set any skills that cannot be transferred through introductory training?
Firstly, you need to be a very literate person. Competent not only technically, but also in terms of the sense of language.
Secondly, without work experience they always look at the background - philology or journalism is a priority.
Thirdly, when faced with a living text, you can never control it solely with your brain. You need to come to terms with this, because without it you cannot be a good proofreader or editor. Authors are different, they all have individual stylistic characteristics, without which the author loses his name, becomes unrecognizable, faceless.
Fourthly, it is good to at least approximately know the technology of book publishing.
18. Can you describe a person who would be ideal for your workplace?
This must be a very attentive person with a good memory, good visual perception, and a sense of language. It’s good if this person has tried or is trying to write himself. Despite the apparent closeness of the work from people, communication skills are necessary. And, of course, this person must love books. That's it: not the Russian language and literature, but the books and history that these books give us.
19. Do you consider your job temporary or is it an occupation for a significant part of your life?
I was sure that this activity would last forever. But two years ago I decided to go to another area. Before that, I worked on books for more than ten years.
20. Is there a dress code in your work?
This is one of the most informal jobs. It is enough to be careful in clean clothes so that your colleagues don’t shy away from you. And so editors and proofreaders are funny guys - tattoos, dreadlocks, even headdresses - everything comes across.
I myself wear casual – jeans, loose-fitting shirts, sweaters, jumpers, T-shirts with funny prints, sneakers, sneakers, boots. It even happened that I came to the editorial office of “Economy and Life” in camouflage and with a 100-liter backpack in view of the train leaving almost immediately after work.
Of course, a lot depends on the publishing house - you can’t go to the guys from Podium or Forbes for God knows what) But literary publishing houses allow certain liberties.
Let's summarize:
- A literary editor is a specialist who is engaged in correcting copyright texts for their further publication by a publishing house. An editor can be on staff or freelance, depending on this, his career opportunities change, but the actual set of functions remains virtually unchanged.
- In addition to working with texts, the literary editor communicates with authors, representatives of the publishing house, graphic designers, proofreaders, and translators. His task is to coordinate the process of turning the author's original draft text into a book that sits on the bookstore shelf.
- To become a literary editor, you need to receive a higher specialized education (graduate from the faculty of philology or journalism), and also have the appropriate qualities: innate literacy, the ability to “feel the text” (imagine what the author means through his mistakes and style).
- Literary editor is a rather informal profession. The working day, dress code and workplace of such a specialist are not regulated too strictly. If you work outside the state, for example, at home, no one will monitor these things at all.
- In the future, a literary editor may take over a department of a publishing house that deals with a specific area (for example, fiction or science), and then become the editor-in-chief of the publishing house. Most often, this requires working on the staff of a publishing house.
is a specialist who prepares an author’s text for publication. He corrects the text at his own discretion, which sometimes does not coincide with the opinion of the author. So, the editor is the last barrier between the author and the reader. Creative individuals have been waging an endless struggle among themselves for many centuries. However, writers go for it because the editor's edits often make sense. A literary editor who specializes in finding inaccuracies protects the author from his own mistakes.
What does a literary editor do?
Editing - joint activities over the text of a literary editor and writer in order to improve its form and content. This is the main link in the process of publishing material for publication. This process depends on the specialist’s ability to find new ideas and solutions. This specialty is important because it is the editor who serves as someone like, evaluates and verifies the reliability of the facts referred to by the author in the manuscript, substantiates the author’s thoughts, argues conclusions, clarifies definitions and the sequence of presentation. The editor, by correcting gross errors, helps young writers achieve clarity and simplicity of presentation of the text.
An independent editor pays attention both to the work as a whole and to each section separately, removing the main shortcomings. The editor's responsibilities include penetrating into the emotional world of the writer and bringing the manuscript to an ideal that is understandable to all readers. When adjusting the text, it is necessary to remember its target group (specialization in medical, legal or technical fields). In such cases, reliable sources (encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference books) will be able to help him. The most time-consuming part is deep editing.
What should a literary editor be like?
A literary editor must have an excellent knowledge of the Russian language, be attentive, patient, unbiased and possess analytical warehouse mind. And most importantly, he should not automatically correct mistakes, but should love what he does.
He must be able, by slowly and carefully reading the material, to give a critical assessment of the meaning of the entire text, and also to notice all typos and basic spelling errors. A professional specialist, like , needs to respect the author’s presentation style and not make unreasonable amendments to the text. He will not risk adding words or correcting the meaning of the text on his own.
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Editorial work is most directly related to journalism. And even if the finished material subsequently passes through the hands of the editor of any publication or website, the author is simply obliged to first check it himself in order to eliminate errors, typos, discrepancies, etc. That is why for a competent journalist it will always be an advantage to know the newspaper or publishing business, the peculiarities of turning a manuscript into a publication, the basics of modern printing technologies and techniques, and the economics of publishing. Based on this, in this lesson we will talk about a journalist as about an editor. In fact, the lesson itself will be useful not only for journalists, but also for editors.
An editor is a person who is impeccably literate, has excellent knowledge of the literary language, and is able to use all the abundance of lexical and stylistic means to make the text bright, understandable and interesting for the reader. The very concept of “editing” can be considered from the perspective of its three main meanings:
- Checking, correcting and processing text
- Directing the publication of something (for example, editing and publishing a magazine)
- The precise verbal formulation and expression of a specific concept or thought
Below we will talk in detail specifically about literary editing of text materials.
Literary editing
Literary editing is a multifaceted process of working on text material being prepared for publication. It includes evaluating the topic, checking and correcting the presentation, checking and correcting the development of the topic, and literary processing of the text. Let's go a little deeper and understand the details of each of the components.
Topic rating
When assessing a topic, you need to get acquainted with the text and give a general assessment of the need for its publication. Here you need to take into account the specifics of the publication or web resource where the text will subsequently be published, and the correspondence of the text to the problem solved by the author.
Theme development
The development of a topic should be understood as establishing how comprehensively and objectively facts, phenomena and events are considered in the text, and how logical the presentation of the material is. It is very important to determine the validity of conclusions, conclusions, generalizations and scientific statements, and also to understand whether it was possible to convey not only the external appearance of the phenomenon or event in question, but also its inner essence. If the editor is not the author, he or she must check all quotations, figures and facts for accuracy. As a rule, this is quite enough to form a correct idea of the truth of the scientific and factual components.
Literary treatment
Literary processing involves assessing the structure of the material, its volume, the nature of presentation, language and style. When evaluating a text, you should always pay attention to the composition of the text and the relationship of its individual blocks; check the text for exaggerations of secondary data, repetitions, and complex lexical structures; evaluate the sequence of material, etc. You also need to establish the correspondence of the volume of material to the chosen topic, and, if necessary, reduce it. The style and language of the work play a huge role: only works that are written in precise and clear literary language can be published.
The main stage of the literary editing process begins when all the above-mentioned shortcomings are eliminated. During the first test reading, the text, as a rule, is not corrected. In the margins of sheets or files, notes are simply made on the most serious lexical, stylistic, logical and semantic errors. During the first reading, it is convenient to determine the type of subsequent editing (we will talk about types of editing later).
At the stage of the second reading, you can make edits, make corrections to the composition and eliminate logical inconsistencies, as well as analyze the title - evaluate its expressiveness and compliance with the content (the more the title corresponds to the content, the better).
Text editing is creative work, and it is largely determined by the individual style of the editor. However, such things as working on composition and text, eliminating semantic errors, checking factual material and choosing a title do not depend on the individual style. The main task in the editing process is to improve the content and form of the text. And the point is to come to their unity.
Types of editing
High-quality editing will eliminate errors, achieve clearness and clarity of wording, check factual data and eliminate inaccuracies, and rid the text of roughness of style and language. At the same time, changes should be made only if there is a real need for them.
Based on the changes the text undergoes during editing, we can distinguish four main types of editing:
- Editing and proofreading
- Edit-cut
- Editing-processing
- Editing and reworking
More details about each type.
Editing and proofreading
The point of editing and proofreading is to compare the text with a more perfect original, identify technical errors and eliminate them. Editing and proofreading will be applied when editing:
- Official materials (reports, resolutions, agreements, etc.)
- Works of literary classics
- Editions of historical documents
- Reprints of books published without processing
- Definitive (finally established) materials
If documentary or definitive texts are being prepared for publication or edition, first of all you need to make sure that they exactly correspond to the original or previous edition.
As for corrections specifically, they are subject to typos, spelling errors, clerical errors without meaning (if necessary, you can make footnotes and give comments in them). Unfinished words are also completed and abbreviations are deciphered. If texts of historical works or documents come across, they are given the features modern graphics, however, the features of the environment or era (style, phraseological units, specific expressions, etc.) present in the text remain unchanged.
Edit-cut
When editing-condensing, the main task of the editor is to shorten the text, but without compromising its content. Downsizing may be necessary for several reasons:
- You need to keep within a specific volume (number of sheets, lines or characters). To effectively compress volume, it is useful to use abbreviations of words, terms, and names. In some cases (when the volume is limited to sheets or lines), you can simply use fonts of smaller sizes.
- It is necessary to meet certain tasks facing the author or publishing house. Thus, it is customary to reduce volumes when publishing popular science, journalistic and artistic works that are republished “to suit the needs” of a specific audience (children, students, non-specialists, etc.). The same technique is used when publishing anthologies and collections (not all material is published, but the most important, interesting and useful for readers from the perspective of the compilers).
- The text has shortcomings, such as unnecessary details, repetitions, length, prolixity, a large number of similar examples or data, etc. Reduction here is a necessity because... a clearer and stricter compositional structure is achieved.
Editing-processing
Editing-processing is used in editorial practice more often than other types. Editor in in this case corrects unsuccessful turns and words, clarifies wording and phrases, makes the structure of the work logical, adds more convincing arguments, and eliminates any signs of confusion. At the same time, the subtleties of the author's style and style must be preserved, and if the author is not an editor, any changes must be agreed upon. Any amendment must be scientifically and logically justified.
Editing and reworking
Editing and reworking is relevant in cases where the editor is working on the works of authors who have poor command of the literary language. This type of editing is widespread in the practice of newspaper work, and is also used when publishing articles, memoirs, and brochures. As in the previous case, the author's style must be preserved.
But when working to eliminate errors, the editor should not only make edits, but also constantly monitor the consistency of the material, because The main points put forward by the author must be logically connected, and all transitions from one part to another must be natural and consistent. For this reason, it is important to have an understanding of the logical foundations of text editing.
Logical Basics of Text Editing
As we said, the editor is obliged to pay attention to the logical presentation of the material being prepared for publication. This suggests that the main theses in the text must be proven, and the evidence itself must be reliable, justified and beyond doubt. Of course, formal logic will not rid the text of shortcomings and errors, but it will fully contribute to the systematization of the presentation, give it credibility and eliminate contradictions.
In some cases, the editor needs to check the complex of evidence available in the text, strengthen it, get rid of unnecessary arguments, and also eliminate the substitution of theses if the text does not prove what was originally intended. Simply put, the editor needs to evaluate the consistency of the logical proof. The latter should be understood as establishing the reliability of one judgment by bringing other judgments, the truth of which is beyond doubt and from which the reliability of the initial judgment being verified follows.
A logical proof takes place if three conditions are met:
- There is a thesis - something that needs to be proven
- There are arguments - judgments that prove the thesis at the proper level (before the thesis is proven)
- There is a demonstration - judgments showing how the thesis is justified by the arguments given.
If at least one of these conditions is not met, the proof will be invalid, because It will be unclear why, how and what is being proven. This topic requires a more detailed consideration, but taking into account the specifics of our course (after all, it is intended more for journalists than for editors), we will not go deep into it, but will move on to a more important part - the types of errors found in text materials.
Basic mistakes when writing texts
In total, there are five main categories of errors made by authors when writing text materials:
- Logical errors
- Lexical errors
- Syntax errors
- Spelling errors
Let's figure out what their features are.
Logical errors
Logical errors are divided into several categories. They manifest themselves in the composition of the text, unsuccessful development of the topic, argumentation, etc. The most common logical errors include:
- Mutually exclusive concepts (when a water sentence says, for example, that the sea was calm and smooth, and the waves were breaking on the rocks - a calm sea and breaking waves are concepts that exclude each other).
- Displacement of the presentation plan (inconsistency of presentation, unnecessary repetitions of proper names, linguistic carelessness, lack of important details etc.).
- Incorrect establishment of causal relationships (when the sentence says, for example, that the process of loading and unloading work is not mechanized at the enterprise, but loaders work in harsh conditions, because mechanization issues are difficult to resolve - cause and effect contradict each other).
- Incorrect comparison of facts/comparison of incomparable facts (when the text says, for example, that students are great at picking potatoes in the field because they strive to improve their health, or when, for example, the work of traffic police officers is considered only from the point of view of the number of accidents on the streets of the city - the given facts cannot be compared, because they logically belong to different categories).
- Substitution of theses (when the text begins, for example, with a conversation about the need to improve the quality of roads on city streets, and ends with assurances from the person in charge that additional restrictive signs will be installed in problem areas - the original thesis at the end is replaced by another - not directly related to first).
- Lack of correspondence in the details of the events described (when the text, for example, says that in the northern and southern regions of Russia the harvesting of potatoes, cotton and grain crops is in full swing - each of the crops is being harvested in different times, each crop grows in different regions - it turns out that these details cannot be combined into one picture).
Logical errors entail a huge number of semantic errors, but there are cases when logical inconsistencies are used specifically by authors. This technique is typical for parodies, pamphlets and feuilletons.
Lexical errors
Lexical errors are another common category of errors. Their main reasons are inaccurate word usage, unsuccessful use of catchwords, idioms and phraseological units, linguistic carelessness and oversaturation of text material with special vocabulary and concepts that may be unknown to the general public
Grammatical and stylistic errors
Among the most common grammatical and stylistic errors are the incorrect use of pronouns, unsuccessful replacement of plural nouns with the singular and vice versa, incorrect use of gender of nouns.
Syntax errors
Syntactic errors are expressed in incorrect word order, violations of adjacency, coordination and control, as well as in the incorrect use of participial and participial phrases.
Spelling errors
Spelling errors consist of misspelling words. Their main feature is that they are practically not perceived by ear, but the quality of the printed text noticeably suffers. The most “popular” spelling errors are:
- "Russifier", not "Russifier"
- "Officially", not "officially"
- "Russian", not "Russian"
- “Polyclinic”, not “polyclinic”
- "Russia", not "Russia"
- “Download”, not “download”
- "Schedule", not "schedule"
- "Reviews" not "reviews"
- "Program", not "program"
- "Calculate" rather than "calculate"
- “To do”, not “to do”
- "Agency" not "agency"
- "Thailand" not "Thailand"
- "Pretty" rather than "pretty"
- "One", not "one"
Often there are also incorrect spellings of the words “also” and “as well”, “why” and “for what”, “company” and “campaign”, “why” and “for what”, “in general” and “in general” and etc.
Many mistakes, whatever they may be, can be easily avoided by doing them regularly. But, of course, not everyone can be 100% literate, and therefore when editing a text you always need to pay special attention to it, and, if necessary, check it several times. Remember that your success and how seriously you will be taken by customers and readers depend on how correctly and competently your text is written. And as an excellent help when checking materials, you can use special programs for editing texts.
To make the process of checking and editing text faster and easier, we’ll give you one more useful recommendation- build your editing work in three stages:
- The first stage is a quick - purely introductory reading, during which you evaluate the integrity of the material, its content, idea and manner of presentation.
- The second stage is a slow and more in-depth reading, during which you focus on all the paragraphs, sentences, words and characters. Here you analyze individual units of text, correlate its parts with each other, work on detail, and correct all types of errors.
- The third stage is control reading. The text is re-read again, the uniformity of presentation, the correct spelling of the most complex elements, proper names, numerical data and dates are analyzed.
This is where the check ends, and if everything was done correctly and thoroughly, the finished material will meet all literacy requirements. But still, we remind you once again that when in doubt, the text is better once again check, because, as they say: “measure twice, cut once.”
Now we invite you to take a little break from the practice of writing various journalistic materials and editing texts, and replenish your knowledge base with interesting information. In the sixth lesson, we will again touch on theory and talk about another very popular direction in our time - advertising journalism. The lesson will examine advertising journalism as a phenomenon, the main points of contact between journalism and advertising, and also provide brief classification genres of advertising journalism. But we will not ignore the practical component - the best formulas for advertising texts will be offered to your attention.
Test your knowledge
If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. For each question, only 1 option can be correct. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on completion. Please note that the questions are different each time and the options are mixed.
I.B. DOVE
Higher education
LECTURE 1. 6
Literary editing as an academic discipline. General problems of literary editing. 7
2. Definition of discipline. Editorial preparation of publications is a complex process. 9
3. Literary editing as one of the aspects of publishing. 11
6. Assessing the logical qualities of the text. 17
LECTURE 2 20
The editor's work on the composition of the work. 20
1. How does editing a work begin 20
2. Features of the editorial reading of the manuscript 21
4. Features of the construction of journalistic texts 23
5. The editor’s work to eliminate the shortcomings of the composition 27
6. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic 30
LECTURE 3 36
The problem of classifying functional-semantic types of speech. Editorial rating of description 36
1. Identification of functional and semantic types of speech 36
2. Description. General characteristics 39
3. Descriptions in artistic speech and journalism 43
4. Static and dynamic descriptions 45
5. Compositional inclusion of descriptions in other texts 46
6. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic 47
LECTURE 4 50
Editorial evaluation of different types of storytelling 50
1. Narration as a functional-semantic type of speech 51
2. The scope of use of narration in different functional styles and genres 51
3. Methods of conveying the sequence of events, actions, phenomena in the narrative 53
4. Epic, stage and biographical narratives 60
5. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic 63
LECTURE 5 67
Criteria for editorial evaluation of reasoning, explanation, and instruction. Combination different types speeches in one text 67
1. Definition of reasoning as a functional-semantic type of speech 67
2. Explicit and implicit forms of reasoning 69
3. Inference as the basis of reasoning 71
4. Deductive and inductive methods of reasoning 72
5. Different shapes reasoning: evidence (direct and indirect), explanation 75
6. Explanation as a way of presenting material 78
7. Definition, its types 80
8. Instructing as a special way of organizing text 83
9. Combination of different types of speech in one text 83
10. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic 84
LECTURE 6. 88
Editing text during literary editing. Proofreading and shortening text 88
1. Editing the text in the process of literary editing. Types of editing. 88
2. Editing and proofreading. 90
3. Correction marks used when different types edits. 91
4. Editing-cutting. General characteristics of this type of editing. 100
5. Methodology for performing editing-reduction. 101
6. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic. 104
LECTURE 7. 108
Editing-processing and editing-reworking in the process of literary editing. 108
1. General requirements for the editor performing editing and processing. 109
3. Application of editing-processing when editing texts belonging to different functional styles. 116
When starting to edit and process the text, the literary editor must take into account the peculiarities of the genre. Some requirements are imposed on the literary form of information genres (note, report, report, interview), characterized by some dryness and limited expressive elements of speech; a different approach - to the style of analytical genres (correspondence, article, review, letter, review), characterized by a freer handling of linguistic material, a wide use of colloquial means, figurative speech. And there should be a very special attitude towards editing artistic and journalistic genres (essay, sketch, feuilleton, pamphlet), which reflect the originality of the individual author’s style and often do not tolerate the intervention of a literary editor. Appeal to such strong means of emotional influence as tropes, rhetorical figures, direct and improperly direct speech and others is available only to the author himself, who is unlikely to agree to transfer this right to a literary editor. 118
4. Editing and reworking. 122
Unedited text: 122
5. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic. 124
Unedited text 124
LECTURE 8. 127
The editor's work on the vocabulary of the manuscript. Assessing word usage. Elimination of lexical errors. 127
1. The word is the basis for understanding the text. 128
3. Analysis of word usage. Elimination of lexical errors of various types. 131
4. Using a word without taking into account semantics. Euphemistic speech. 132
Edited version 132
6. Logical errors as a result of incorrect word usage. 134
7. The problem of lexical compatibility. 137
8. Speech redundancy and its manifestation. 139
9. Speech failure. 143
Unedited version 147
LECTURE 9. 149
Criteria for editorial evaluation of lexical synonymy, antonymy, paronymy, paronomasia. Stylistic assessment of the polysemy of words and the phenomenon of homonymy. 149
1. Lexical synonymy is the source of richness and expressiveness of the Russian language. 150
2. Stylistic functions of synonyms in the text. 151
3. Errors when using synonyms in speech. 154
4. Lexical antonymy as a manifestation of systemic relations in the Russian language. 156
5. Stylistic use of antonyms in literary and journalistic texts. 158
6. Errors when using antonyms in speech. 161
7. The concept of paronymy and paronomasia. 162
8. Stylistic use of paronyms and consonant words. 163
9. Mixing paronyms. Errors caused by paronomasia. 165
10. Stylistic assessment of the polysemy of words and the phenomenon of homonymy. 167
11. Errors arising from the use of polysemantic words and homonyms. 170
12. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic. 171
Lecture 10. 174
The editor's work with different styles of vocabulary used in journalistic speech. 174
1. Stylistic stratification of Russian vocabulary. 175
2. The use of different styles of vocabulary in journalistic speech. 179
3. Stylistic assessment of vocabulary of limited use. 182
4. The use of terms in popular science texts. 185
5. Pseudo-scientific presentation. 186
6. Stylistic assessment of outdated words in a journalistic text. 187
7. Evaluation of clericalism and speech cliches. Speech standards. 189
8. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic. 195
LECTURE 11. 202
Criteria for editorial evaluation of foreign words and neologisms. 202
1. The influx of foreign words into the Russian language. 202
2. Stylistic characteristics of borrowings. 205
3. Speech errors that arise when using foreign words. 207
4. Stylistic editing of texts with unjustified use of foreign words. 211
5. The composition of neologisms in modern Russian. 218
6. Stylistic assessment of new words. 224
7. Refusal to use neologisms when editing. 225
8. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic. 227
LECTURE 12. 230
The editor's work on phraseological means of the language. 230
1. The main types of phraseological units of the Russian language, their expressiveness. 231
2. Features of the structure and use of phraseological units. 234
3. Stylistic use of phraseological units by journalists 235
4. Phraseological innovation of journalists and writers 237
5. Speech errors when using phraseological units 241
6. Analysis of stylistic correction of errors associated with the use of phraseological units 245
7. Practical tasks to reinforce the topic 248
LECTURE 13 255
Editor's work on lexical means of figurative speech 255
1. The concept of figurative speech 255
2. Basic lexical figurative means used in journalism 256
3. Criteria for editorial evaluation of tropes in journalistic texts 262
4. Errors when using lexical figurative means 265
5. Analysis of the editorial processing of the essay 269
6. Edited text 273
7. Practical tasks to reinforce topic 275
Lecture 14 285
LECTURE 14 285
Criteria for editorial evaluation of text phonics 285
1. The importance of the sound organization of speech. Euphony requirement 285
2. The desire for euphony of speech when stylistically editing the text 290
3. Strengthening the sound expressiveness of speech in prose text 293
4. Random sound repetitions in prose texts 298
5. Elimination of phonics deficiencies when stylistically editing the text 304
6. Practical tasks to consolidate topic 310
Lecture 15 318
Criteria for editorial evaluation of the use of nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns 318
1. Nouns as a means of figurative concretization 319
2. Elimination of morphological and stylistic errors when using nouns 325
3. Expressive function of adjectives 329
4. Elimination of morphological and stylistic errors when using adjectives 332
5. Place of numerals in journalistic texts 334
6. Criteria for editorial evaluation of the use of variant forms of the numeral 336
7. Eliminating errors when using numerals 340
8. Stylistic use of pronouns 343
9. Eliminating errors when using pronouns 347
10. Practical tasks to consolidate topic 350
Lecture 16 355
LECTURE 16. 355
Criteria for editorial evaluation of the use of verb forms 355
1. Place of the verb in comparison with other parts of speech in journalistic style 356
2. The verb as a means of object-figurative concretization of the narrative 358
3. Stylistic use of grammatical categories of the verb 361
4. Eliminating errors that arise when using verbs 366
5. Participle - a special verb form and its stylistic assessment 374
6. Elimination of errors that occurred when using participles 378
7. Stylistic assessment of the gerund as a verb form 382
8. Practical tasks to reinforce topic 388
Lecture 17 393
The editor's work on syntactic structures when editing the manuscript 393
1. Variety of syntactic structures in the Russian language 393
2. Stylistic assessment of parallel syntactic constructions 399
3. Use of parallel syntactic structures during stylistic editing 406
6. Practical tasks to reinforce topic 422
Lecture 18 429
Achieving clarity of syntactic structures during literary editing 429
1. Editorial assessment of word order in sentence 430
2. Stylistically unjustified inversion and elimination of this error during literary editing 435
3. Unmotivated ellipse. Stylistic editing of constructions with a missing member of sentence 438
4. Stylistic assessment of constructions with non-prepositional and prepositional control 439
5. The problem of coordinating the main members of sentence 443
6. Stylistic assessment of options for harmonizing definitions and applications 449
7. Practical tasks to reinforce topic 459
References 466
Literary editing is one of the most important aspects of publishing; it has a specific practical orientation and is based on generalizing the experience of literary processing of texts by writers, journalists, and publishing employees.
Literary editing classes are held in universities at faculties that train journalists and editors and publishing workers. The teaching methods of the subject are different: at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, practical classes are devoted to literary editing for a year, and at the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, editorial preparation of publications is studied for two years, including literary editing as an integral part of the editor’s work on the manuscript. A lecture course on literary editing is given at the Moscow Humanitarian Institute. E.R. Dashkova. After listening to it and working on the practical tasks proposed to consolidate each topic, students write a course work, the content of which includes preparing works of different genres for publication in a newspaper or magazine. Practical mastery of literary editing skills is also tested during testing before the exam.
This manual was the result of the author’s work at the Humanitarian Institute. E.R. Dashkova.
I express my gratitude to the reviewers who approved the manuscript - Professor Grigory Yakovlevich Solganik and Associate Professor Nina Zakharovna Ryabinina, as well as my students who selected interesting illustrative material and participated in editing the texts proposed in practical tasks. I am grateful to all my listeners who collect examples that reflect the far from perfect language of modern journalism. An analysis of the style of these texts convinces us that the problem of literary editing is very relevant for journalists and publishing workers.
Lectures on literary editing will be interesting and useful to everyone who cares about the culture of written speech and wants to learn how to express their thoughts convincingly and beautifully, and most importantly, correctly.
LITERATURE:
Bylinsky K.I., Rosenthal D.E. Literary editing. - M.: Art, 1961.
Likhtenshtein E.S., Sikorsky N.M., Urnov M.V. Theory and practice of editing. - M.: Higher School, 1963, vol. 1-2.
Senkevich M.P., Feller M.D. Literary editing (linguostylistic fundamentals). - M.: Higher School, 1968.
Theory and practice of editing. Reader. Ed. N.M. Sikorsky. - M.: Higher School, 1968.
Sikorsky N.M. Theory and practice of editing. - M.: Education, 1971, 1980.
Milchin A.E. Text editing technique. - M.: Higher School, 1980.
Nakoryakova K.M. Editing media materials. - M.: MSU, 1982.
Bazanova A.E. Literary editing. - M.:UDN, 1991.
Abramovich A.V., Lazarevich E.A. Workshop on literary editing. - M.: Moscow State University, 1970, 1974, 1986.
Lavrentyeva E.V., Nakoryakova K.M. Electronic journalism: Editorial processing of journalistic materials. - M.: MSU, 1991.
Nakoryakova K.M. Literary editing of mass media materials. - M.: MSU, 1994.
Nakoryakova K.M. Literary editing. – M.: Ikar, 2002.
Guzhova I.K., Molibozhenko R.A., Nakoryakova K.M., Surikova T.I. - Literary editing. Materials for classes. - M.: MSU, 2000.
SAMPLE SUBJECTS OF STUDENT WORKS:
Experience of editorial work of a journalist or writer of the 19th-20th centuries.
Organization of editorial activities of a newspaper, magazine, publishing house.
National characteristics language of the media.
Genre structure of journalistic texts and features of their editing.
Compositional structure of various journalistic genres.
Stylistic features of various journalistic genres.
LECTURE 1.
Literary editing as an academic discipline. General problems of literary editing.
2. Definition of discipline. Editorial preparation of publications is a complex process.
3. Literary editing as one of the aspects of publishing activity.
4. The formation of literary editing in Russia.
5. Tasks of literary text editing.
6. Assessing the logical qualities of the text.
1. History of the issue. Textbooks for literary editing.
Literary editing as an academic discipline began to be studied for the first time at the Moscow Printing Institute (now the University of Printing Arts) in the late 40s - early 50s of the 20th century. In those years, the department of editing of the MPI was headed by K.I. Bylinsky, who wrote the manual “Fundamentals of Literary Editing and Editing of Newspaper Materials” (Moscow, 1948, p. 64). Nine years later, Konstantin Iakinfovich, in collaboration with D.E. Rosenthal, who headed the department of Russian language and stylistics at the MPI, prepared the textbook “Literary Editing” (M.: Iskusstvo, 1957. P. 340). By this time, the course in literary editing was already taught not only at the MPI, but also at Moscow State University, where it was taught by Professor K.I. at the Faculty of Journalism since 1952. Bylinsky.
In the lectures of K.I. Bylinsky, the general concept of the course was formulated, the subject of study was determined, and the main sections of the program were developed. So the preparatory work for the creation of a new academic subject was completed. Its further development was carried out by colleagues and students of K.I. Bylinsky - A.V. Abramovich, E.A. Lazarevich, N.M. Sikorsky, A.E. Milchin, M.P. Senkevich and others. The title of the course “Literary Editing” currently “appears more traditional than accurate,” notes K.M. Nakoryakova, the author of a leading textbook on this subject, pointing out that the consolidation of the term is due to “the desire to emphasize the specifics of the editorial preparation of materials in the conditions of newspaper work and the need to designate a concept broader than literary editing - the elimination of errors in language and style”?.
The focus of the authors of literary editing manuals we named was the preparation for publication of mainly newspaper materials. The working conditions of newspaper workers in the editorial office, the special efficiency in preparing materials, the literary processing of small literary forms largely determined the content of the literary editing course: it gives preference to the preparation of works of a journalistic style. Other topics are devoted to the editor’s work with text of other styles. teaching aids(Editing certain types of literature / Edited by N.M. Sikorsky. M.: Book, 1987; Antonova S.G. et al. Editorial preparation of publications: Textbook for universities. M., 2002).
At the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, the Department of Russian Language and Stylistics prepared a course of lectures “Literary Editing” edited by Professor N.S. Valgina (M., MPI Publishing House, 1989. P. 127). It also deals with literary editing of works belonging to different functional styles, but a number of chapters are devoted to common problems editor's work with text. Of particular interest in this regard is what N.S. wrote. Valgina chapter “Semantic-structural and functional features of the text as an object of work of a literary editor”, as well as the chapter “Elimination of speech errors and inaccuracies. Monitoring compliance with the norm”, prepared by I.B. Blue
In the proposed course of lectures we will preserve the tradition established in the works of K.I. Bylinsky, - to consider the work of a literary editor mainly on materials of the journalistic style, giving preference to works of small forms.
1 K.M. Nakoryakova. Literary editing. General methodology for working on text: Workshop. M.: IKAR, 2002.P.8.
2. Definition of discipline. Editorial preparation of publications is a complex process.
The term “editing” goes back to the Latin source: hedactus - putting in order. The word editor came into the Russian language from French: gedasteur - “a person who edits something.” The Great Soviet Encyclopedia offers a more extensive interpretation of this term:
“An editor is a person who corrects, processes any text and brings it into conformity with the rules of literary style, style, with the purpose, character and political orientation of a given printed publication” (BSE. T. 36. P. 238). However, this definition does not reflect all the functions of an employee called an editor. The complex of tasks and functions of the editor make him responsible for performing various types of work - from organizational and managerial to literary and creative. Therefore, the word “editing” has acquired several meanings: this term can mean managing the production of a book, newspaper, periodical, as well as television and radio programs, and films. Editing is also usually called checking and correction, the final literary and technical processing of any text intended for reproduction. This also includes bringing the content and design of the text into compliance with established unified standards. This line of work is also editing. Finally, the broadest meaning of the term “editing” includes all successive stages of the publishing process of improving a manuscript work in ideological, political, scientific and literary terms. In this case, editing brings together a group of people, including both the author himself and the scientific, literary, artistic and technical editor, reviewers and all employees involved in the delivery of the manuscript to production and its publication.
Literary editing can be briefly defined as “the search for the most accurate verbal expression of formulations, certain ideas, specific judgments or concepts, as well as arguments that clearly and convincingly prove the points put forward by the author 1.
Editorial preparation of publications is a complex, multi-stage process. The editor must know the requests and needs of readers, he studies the market, determines the thematic composition of publications, looks for authors to create the necessary works, and decides what can be republished. The editor draws up a concept, develops a model for the future publication, and resolves issues of design and illustration of works. Finally, his responsibilities include editorial processing of the manuscript submitted by the author; the editor must organize its passage to the publishing house, develop a program for the publication’s advertising campaign, and monitor the situation developing in the process of distributing published works. Therefore, as experts rightly say, vocational training editor “involves the study of many subjects, the core of which are subjects of the actual editorial orientation” 2.
3. Literary editing as one of the aspects of publishing.
Literary editing is one of the most important subjects in this range of disciplines; it has a specific practical orientation and is based on generalizing the experience of literary processing of texts by famous writers, publishing employees, writers and journalists. Literary editing is not a separate independent stage in the development of a manuscript, but, as one of the types of work on a work, is present at all stages of the movement from manuscript to book. Already at the stage of preliminary review by the editor and external reviewers, significant attention is certainly paid to the literary form of the work submitted to the publishing house; reviews, as a rule, note the stylistic features of the presentation of the material, and indicate errors and shortcomings in style made by the author. The author's presentation of the material is subjected to a more detailed practical analysis at the stage of in-depth editorial review so that the author, in the process of finalizing the manuscript, if possible, independently corrects the noticed speech and semantic errors.
In further work, the editor helps the author improve the manuscript. As one of the most experienced publishing workers points out, thanks to the efforts of the editor, “every element of the manuscript is analyzed and evaluated, down to the smallest; finding out the reasons for particular imperfections of the text and possibilities for its improvement, searching for means to eliminate these reasons, ways to implement these possibilities, editing as a type of constructive suggestions to the author” 1.
4. The formation of literary editing in Russia.
The profession of an editor has a long tradition, and at the very beginning, editing was carried out precisely in terms of literary processing of the text. In Rus', with the spread of the first liturgical books, which were handwritten copies of Byzantine originals, the need arose for their literary processing. Translators of religious texts sought not only to reproduce their content in Church Slavonic, but also to present it in a more accessible form, and this required literary processing of these ancient written monuments. Their creators also strived for the perfection of the linguistic form of translations and took care of the correctness of the graphic execution of these precious works. (Ancient handwritten books on parchment were comparable in price to an entire house!)
Modern researchers of ancient monuments of Russian writing find traces of editorial changes in them. Thus, in The Tale of Bygone Years, layers of text that differ in time have been preserved, belonging to chroniclers whose life dates were separated by decades. Investigating this monument, M.X. Aleshkovsky states: “Before us are traces of the work of a whole galaxy of scribes who succeeded each other, who used the texts of their predecessors when writing their own chronicles” 1.
Undoubtedly, when compiling various lists of this monument, chroniclers resorted to editing texts written earlier. However, one can only guess about the nature of their literary processing. At the time of the creation of handwritten books of predominantly liturgical nature main goal their editing was fidelity to the original: the comparison of new books with the canonical text formed the basis of editorial work.
The beginning of literary editing in the professional sense of this activity was laid by Ivan Fedorov, whose name is associated with the emergence of book printing in Russia. In 1564, when publishing his “Apostle,” Ivan Fedorov directly worked on the text: he excluded several incomprehensible foreign language terms and added the necessary greek words, replaced some archaisms, corrected certain grammatical forms.
Publishing in Russia received a powerful impetus during the Petrine era; the tsar himself took part in the preparation of some books, and now in the book depositories of large cultural centers proof copies with notes and corrections made by the hand of Peter I are preserved. He supervised the publication of various books, scientific works, historical works telling about the victories of Russian weapons, etc. Those close to Peter I also took a direct part in book publishing. Thus, the famous commander P.Ya. Bruce edited books on military affairs. Young nobles who were educated abroad were from time to time engaged in editing books that had important practical significance.
K.M. Nakoryakova, describing the history of literary editing in Russia, shows the special importance for its formation of cultural progress in the 18th century: “It was then that the logical and linguistic foundations of the theory of editing, those traditions in working on the text were laid, many of which we are guided by to this day, various types of books are further formed, techniques are developed through which the editor shows his attitude to the content of the book.”
Outstanding writers of the 18th century A.D. Kantemir, V.K. Trediakovsky, M.V. Lomonosov, N.I. Novikov, A.N. Radishchev, N.M. Karamzin were at the same time theoreticians of Russian literature and paid great attention to book publishing and journalism. Some of them left samples of the author's corrections of their own works and numerous texts that they edited, preparing them for publication.
Writers of the 18th century laid down the tradition of literary editing, adopted by A.S. Pushkin and other writers of the 19th century and continues in our time.
At the same time, the responsibilities of the editor of a magazine, an almanac, as well as the editor of a publishing house are gradually becoming clearer. The editor not only selected material for publication that corresponded to the direction of the publication, but also wrote an editorial preface and prepared footnotes and comments.
The publishing activity of N.A. is of great importance for studying the experience of literary processing of texts. Nekrasov as editor of the Sovremennik magazine, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, who was a member of the editorial board of Otechestvennye zapiski, and other writers of that time. When literary editing the works of remarkable Russian writers who published their works in these magazines, publishers treated with special respect the author's individuality and the unique style of remarkable prose writers and poets. This created a proud tradition in literary editing of works of art.
Since the second half of the 19th century, a new direction has emerged in literary editing - preparing scientific works for publication. It began with the publication of scientific works by N.I. Lobachevsky, I.M. Sechenova, D.I. Mendeleeva, I.P. Pavlova, it finds further completion in the editorial activities of V.I. Vernadsky, N.I. Vavilov, who laid the theoretical foundation for editing scientific works.
At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries, in conditions of intensified political struggle, journalistic literature and, accordingly, its editorial preparation acquired particular importance. Literary editing theorists carefully studied the recommendations and comments of political figures and leaders who taught journalists to write clearly, concisely and accurately. These requirements for the language of the press have not lost their relevance today, although literary editing is based not on politicized cliches of recent times, but on centuries-old provisions on the literary processing of manuscripts in their preparation for publication.
5. Tasks of literary text editing.
The literary editor is responsible for the content and literary design of the material prepared for publication. This means that when working with an author, the editor should first of all pay attention to the choice of topic for publication. The most important criterion for the editorial assessment of the presented material is its relevance, reliability and specificity of what is described.
The novelty of the material and the relevance of the topic for a journalistic work determines the interest of readers in it. Therefore, choosing a topic is the first condition for the successful promotion of a text being prepared for publication. However, this alone is not enough. It is necessary to establish how correctly the topic has been developed, to what extent the author’s fundamental principles are correct, what is the depth of coverage of the topic, and whether the information given in the manuscript corresponds to real facts. In this case, the editor’s main attention should be directed to working with factual material.
The literary editor must master the methodology for analyzing and evaluating the factual material in the submitted manuscript. The term “factual material”, adopted in editing practice, according to experts, covers all elements supporting the text - concepts and subject relations. In contrast to the term “fact”, “factual material is realized in textual structures denoting not only events, but also material elements of the subject range, properties, qualities, states, designations of persons, relationships, quantities” 1. Scrupulous verification of factual material requires erudition from the editor , high professionalism and great tension.
An important criterion for the editorial assessment of the presented material is its specificity. A broad formulation of the question and an insufficiently specific topic makes it difficult to study it in depth and reduces the value of the author’s observations. In addition, this deprives him of the opportunity to accurately determine the reader’s address of the written work.
In the process of literary editing, the text is usually shortened. Reducing the length of a manuscript is usually dictated by the desire of the literary editor to improve the style of presentation. Its prolixity and verbal redundancy are often explained by the author’s inability to express his thoughts concisely and accurately. The editor must exclude semantic repetitions, examples of the same type, unimportant details, and vague formulations. However, when resorting to editing-contraction, the editor must take into account the relationship between the plan of content and the plan of expression of speech units in a specific text belonging to a certain style and genre. Assessing the information content of the means of expression, the editor searches for the most effective ways presentation of the material.
There are different ways increasing the information qualities of a message, the most important among them is the extensive method. It increases the information content of the presentation by expanding the volume of the message, detailing the presentation, allowing deeper insight into the essence of the phenomenon. In contrast, the intensive method consists in condensing information, in an attempt to convey content using more economical linguistic means. The choice of one or another method of presenting material depends on many factors that must be taken into account during literary editing. Knowing the secrets of brevity and conciseness in conveying information, the literary editor must help the author achieve the desired tension (or lack of tension) of the text in accordance with the requirements of the style, genre, and readership of his work.
True, the need to shorten the text may arise regardless of the creative attitudes of the author and editor - due to lack of space on the newspaper page, exceeding the contractual volume of the manuscript, inconsistency of the presented material with the genre, as well as for opportunistic reasons (mention of undesirable details, outdated events, lost its meaning of facts, odious characters, etc.). And in such cases, the literary editor shortens the text, having received the consent of the author.
An important component of literary editing is working on the composition of the text. The editorial assessment of the composition is based on the conditional division of the presented material into its component parts: introductory, main, final. The editor must determine how well the structure of the work conveys its content. The main criteria for editorial evaluation of a composition are: integrity, consistency, proportionality of parts. The individual parts of the work must be combined and interconnected, otherwise there will be chaos in the presentation of the material. The systematicity criterion determines the logical structure of the text, in which individual parts that are interconnected together form a system, and not a mechanical unification of heterogeneous elements. The proportionality of the parts is reflected in the correspondence of the volume of a particular fragment of text to the semantic significance and cognitive value of the information contained in it.
