Wow! Amazing!

How else can I describe EFACON 2023 (also known as the 2023 Editorial Freelancers Association Conference in Alexandria, Virginia)?

I met so many cool people, many of whom I felt I already “knew” from the EFA Discussion List, but whose voices I had never heard before and whose faces I had never seen. The icebreaker games and the welcome reception the first night kicked off my getting to know people, and I clicked with quite a few of them (this is a big deal for me, given that I am an introvert). I also got to interact with fellow freelance editors at meals and before and after the keynote speeches and sessions. Many of these editors had substantial credentials and served as inspiration to me.

I volunteered at one of the sessions by assisting the speaker with my assigned room’s equipment. The training for this was very quick, and I was extremely thankful that the speaker in the room to which I was assigned was very tech-savvy and already knew how to connect her laptop to the PowerPoint projector. There was an issue with the “tricky” microphone, however, and I had to summon an employee from the event planning company to deal with this, but resolving the problem did not take long and did not delay the start of the session. God is good.

As for the other sessions I attended, they taught me an incredible amount of information. I learned about tools which detect plagiarism, the advantages and pitfalls of artificial intelligence (AI) in academic editing, different newsletters about academic editing to which I can (and will) subscribe, how volunteering can help me network, and lots of advice on how to run a business. I gave out my business card many times and received several cards in return; I have already written a “hello, it was great meeting you” email to each of the editors whose card I collected.

Would you believe that I am already getting busier? What a great sign!

A calendar is a tool that is essential for everybody. This is why I was taught how to use one in first grade.

Once I mastered the use of a standard month-to-month calendar, I fell in love with the concept. I loved knowing which day of week, month, and day it was. It seemed as if every day had its own name and personality. The days were like little people to me.

As I grew up, I learned to use calendars to plan ahead. The little squares (or big squares) could tell me when that important paper was due and how much time I had to work on it. I could break down the entire task into pieces and assign each piece to a square (i.e., day). Since I am a visual learner, using a calendar to do this made things much easier.

Now that I am an editor, I prefer using a weekly planner. You probably already know this, but a weekly planner is a calendar that shows each week on two pages. I like such planners because each day’s space gives me plenty of room to write—much more than a little square on a wall calendar. The more appointments and tasks I can write in a single day, the better.

I take (or try to remember to take) my planner to all my doctor’s appointments so that I can make a note of when the next one will be. I remember once being at the reception desk of one doctor’s office and jokingly referring to my planner as my “smartphone” (as in “Let me get out my smartphone.”) This was 2015, and I did not yet have an actual smartphone; I only had a basic flip phone. Would you believe that even though I own a smartphone and could use its calendar to enter appointments, I still use my paper planner? Old habits die hard. Besides, using the tiny alphanumeric “buttons” on a smartphone screen is difficult for a cerebral palsy patient—but I will keep my rants about systemic ableism to myself for now.

You can bet that my planner will be with me every moment of EFACON 2023, which begins this Thursday afternoon and runs until Saturday evening. Speaking of which, since I will be journeying home next Sunday, I will not be blogging next weekend. I hope that all of you, dear readers, enjoy the late summer, and I will be back here on August 27^th.

There are times, as editors, when we must tell our authors things about their writing that are not necessarily “nice.” By this, I mean we have to tell them what needs improvement, and then offer suggestions. However, when we point out what is lacking in an author’s writing, we must be diplomatic. That is part of being a good editor.

The Comments feature in MS Word can be an editor’s best friend…or their worst enemy. Here are a few helpful hints for commenting in Word.

• Use the word “please” liberally. For example, “Please delete the hyphen in ‘nonbinary’ because it is a closed compound” sounds gentler than “Delete the hyphen in ‘nonbinary’” or “’Nonbinary’ is a closed compound.” (Don’t you hate it when you are at the table and your annoying brother says, “Pass the salt,” and you just want to say, “What’s the magic word?” That’s how an author sometimes feels.)

• Use more dos than don’ts. Don’ts are negative and nobody wants to hear them, especially the author of the document you are editing. If you must tell an author to refrain from doing something, use the word “avoid” (as in “Please DO avoid…”). Which of these would you rather hear: “Please avoid the use of slang,” or “Please don’t use slang”? If I were an author, I would much rather hear the former because it sounds positive rather than negative (DO avoid slang rather than DON’T use slang).

• When correcting an error that is contrary to the style guide being used, cite the style guide and the section having to do with that error. For example, “Chemical compounds are open in both noun and adjective form (The Chicago Manual of Style 17^th ed., 7.89).” This will, of course, tell the author you know what you are doing as an editor.

The basic thing to keep in mind is, “If I were writing this, would I like it if an editor said that to me in those words?”

If you are an editor, what tips do you have regarding comments?