Ooligan in Publishers Weekly

Our plight affects the larger sphere of book publishing. Read this short article in Publishers Weekly to learn more about how my beloved graduate program in book publishing is at risk. Please spread the word and help write letters of support.

 

Help Spread the Word

Please help spread the word about Ooligan Press by sharing the information at the Save Ooligan website (http://ooligan.pdx.edu/?page_id=3558) with your friends, family, and network. Hey, share it with complete strangers, even! My thanks,

Karen

A Plea for Publishing

Everyone: the Publishing Program (from which I received my graduate degree) is in danger. We need your help. If you care about the literary community in Portland and beyond, visit this site and lend a hand. Please. Nothing I have ever posted on this blog is more worthwhile, important, or urgent.

Help save the Portland State University Publishing Program and Ooligan Press: http://ooligan.pdx.edu/?page_id=3558

This is just a message to get the word out. I will post updates as often as I can.

Words for the week: November 22

The continuing saga of my trying to contribute to my blog once a week, no matter what.

1. envelope
2. folios
3. approximately
4. text
5. weather patterns
6. a longing for Jupiter
7. coffee ice cream
8. beep
9. morning
10. star

Words for the week: November 15

I will try to post a book review this week, but, in the meantime, here are more words.

1. chiesa
2. negozio
3. разговор
4. anew
5. what?
6. promises
7. whirlwind
8. mocha
9. drenched
10. reconciliation
11. typography
12. resilience
13. Apollo 1
14. reinforcements
15. responsibility
16. time

Words for the week: November 8

1. deadline
2. thiol
3. heavy metal
4. notes
5. cautious
6. concentrate
7. impossible
8. benign
9. quotation marks
10. fire
11. apples
12. feedback
13. bromide
14. hyphenate
15. sent
16. four
17. e tanti auguri
18. accomplishment

Sweet Alphabet Awesomeness

As a student of Russian, I used to have people ask me, from time to time, how similar the Greek and Russian alphabets are, their being distantly connected. Wikipedia provides a good starting point to learn about that. They are a little bit alike. It is fun to compare them; it is always pleasant to look at written language.

Greekdom

Lately I have been learning the Greek alphabet. Why? Mostly I realized I could do it. I should do it. I encounter Greek letters in my copy editing; finally I realized that instead of thinking about “that wavy-looking v” or “the thing that looks like a long lowercase n,” I could actually study the alphabet and say “that nu” or “the eta.”

The common Greek alphabet has 24 letters, so it is easy to learn by taking it in groups of 4. I am still trying to keep some letters straight, but I am glad to have made a lot of progress. The hardest one for me to remember is ξ (Xi). In general, the ones that I see less frequently in my work are the more difficult ones to recall.

The ACS Style Guide (3rd edition) lists these letters on page 214; they are also in The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition) on page 436. And, of course, you can find the alphabet all over the interwebs. I visit the Omniglot page from time to time.

Right now it’s just about recognizing the letters and being able to put names to them. I would also like to learn more about the various uses each letter has in mathematics and science. We’ll see.

Happy birthday, blog!

Today is the 1st birthday of my blog. I am happy that I have existed for so long. I would like to post something more celebratory but, as it stands, I am busy with teaching. I will prepare something later this week.

Science Journal Editing

This week I am preparing to teach a class called Science Journal Editing (WR 410/510) at Portland State University. The class is one of those super-concentrated four-week doses, starting June 21 and running into July. I am looking forward to it but anxious about it: I hope that the students learn a lot and find it satisfying.

I should say that I am co-teaching the class, along with the editor in chief and the managing editor of Astrobiology. Each of us has a valuable perspective; each understands a specific part of the publishing process. So the class will take students through from start to finish: founding a science journal, acting as editor in chief, directing the peer review process, editing for clarity and cadence, and copy editing (my specialty).

How does one teach copy editing? Well, I am about to find out. I would say that copy editing for a science journal is a very structured procedure. I need to stay on track and accomplish certain tasks; there isn’t the time to dawdle or to make things “pretty.” (There is, of course, the need for clarity, precision, and fidelity to the author’s voice—I consider these beautiful, and I strive for them.) Also, I need to accomplish these tasks for eight or more papers every month, so there is a great need for skillful project management.

I consider copy editing to be a more “technical” form of editing. (Technical isn’t quite the word I want, but I cannot think of another.) By this I mean that I concern myself with details such as abbreviations, numbers, units of measurement, variables, equations, tables, figures. Certainly I spend much time on the text; I work with words and their meaning. But I have to insert a space so 0.43nm becomes 0.43 nm. I have to italicize that T for temperature. And many other lovely little things!

Well, this is my life. By the way, there is still room in Science Journal Editing, if you would like to join our band. Science journals are exciting, enlightening, important, and fun.