Liberals Unite Guidelines Regarding Copy Editing, Final Publication, And Revisions
As you know, Liberals Unite is – and has forever been – a work in progress. As part of this process we have taken on a copy editor recently.
To clarify matters, for our purposes a copy editor’s primary function is to insure our content (copy) is “clear, comprehensible, concise, consistent and correct (in no particular order). This process will typically involve correcting spelling, punctuation , grammar, terminology, and idiom to insure compliance with the Associated Press Stylebook. (There is a shortened Style Guideline in the FILES for the Liberals Unite Writers Group.)
With this in mind, there will be occasions when our copy editor will contact a writer with comments, concerns, questions , and/or suggestions. As writers/contributors, I expect your full cooperation with this process. My editor(s) are selected with experience not only with editing/proofreading – but also with our particular industry (that being news and politics in a Facebook and blogging environment). My editor(s) have my full confidence and speak on my behalf.
If there is an occasion wherein a difference of opinion arises in this context, writers/contributors are free to contact Samuel at their convenience and the article in question will remain in a pending status until resolved with Samuel.
All writers/contributors are to respect the following guidelines:
- All articles are to be placed into “PENDING” status. Only Wendy and/or Samuel (and/or future editors) will publish articles. If an items is time-sensitive you can contact Wendy or Samuel directly, or can call Samuel at (925) 215-1124. It is better to miss a time-sensitive piece than to publish something that have not been fully reviewed. There is no exception to this policy.
- Once an article is put into “PENDING” status and published, writers/contributors are forbidden to go into the article for any reason to make any changes. If a spelling error, or some other error is noted, or if a writer/contributor wants to make an addition, update or correction to a published article the proposed alteration must be submitted to Wendy and/or Samuel (and/or future editors) for approval and one of them will make the appropriate changes (if any). There is no exception to this policy.
All too often, we are seeing articles with typos and other errors – even in the titles – subsequent to being reviewed, edited and published. This is no longer acceptable. A quick review of a handful of recent articles indicated one article had undergone 16 revisions after it was edited – most of them containing simple typos – Again, this is no longer acceptable.