Turn your knack for language into a lucrative career

Must-know techniques and resources for maximizing your accuracy and speed

Interested in becoming a copyeditor or proofreader? Want to know more about what each job entails? This friendly guide helps you position yourself for success. Polish your skills, build a winning résumé, and land the job you've always wanted. Books, magazines, Web sites, corporate documents — find out how to improve any type of publication and make yourself indispensable to writers, editors, and your boss.

* Balance between style and rules

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Master the art of the query

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Use proofreader symbols

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Edit and proof electronic documents

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Build a solid freelancing career

KLIATT

This For Dummies book seeks to bring out the editor in all of us. Suzanne Gilad defines a copyeditor or proofreader as simply a normal person, you or me, who loves to read, puts in a little extra attention to detail and gets paid for it. (The author herself has proofread more than 1,200 books for over 20 prominent publishers.) Forget, she says, the notion of the bespectacled bookworm in a dusty office, and utilize her user-friendly resource as the way to jumpstart your own freelance editing career. However, Gilad's work is not solely for those looking for editorial work; it seeks to help anyone who writes and edits on a regular basis with helpful tips on punctuation, grammar, and keeping a consistent tone and authorial voice. The problem with this book is it's boring to read. But what do you expect? It is, of course, a reference book and as such does not promise the most colorful language or an exciting turn of events. But even if you're a supreme wordsmith and love to read about comma splices and the like, Gilad tries to make it all extra scintillating when it's really not, and her jokes fall very, very flat: never absense or abcense, or someone may suspect you of having too much absinthe. Wow.