Review of Redline Runout
prepared by Publication Services
This is your last opportunity to make textual changes to your book. It is also an excellent opportunity to positively influence its quality.
Your book is being edited online in MS Word, using the Track Changes feature. The edited manuscript shows keymarking, editorial deletions, and editorial additions. This is called “redline” manuscript because years ago such corrections appeared with red lines. What you are receiving is actually all in black or gray.
Redline Editing Conventions
Keymarks identify the various style elements contained in your book to facilitate text design and production (typesetting layout). In online editing the keymarks typically appear in square or angle brackets at the beginning of the material to which they apply. Examples follow:
| [AU] | John Quincy Adams | [H2] | Mixed Stands | |
| [TXT] | This principle is pervasive. | [TFN] | table footnote | |
| [H1] | Midwestern Forests |
Material deleted by the copyeditor displays with strikethrough, as in the following example:
| The man man was chosen to be chairman. |
The second man is lined through to show that your copyeditor has deleted it. Strikethrough can make it a bit difficult to discern deletions of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes, so particular attention should be paid when they seem to be deleted.
Material added by the copyeditor displays with underline, as in this example:
| The man was chosen to be chairman. |
The word “man” is underlined to show that the copyeditor added it. You can put your mouse arrow on an addition or deletion to see who made the change. Our changes should say “Copy Editor”.
Many editorial changes show both deletions and additions, as in this example:
| The tree which that was standing by the well was blew blown down. |
(Note that a vertical bar in the margin shows that there has been a change to the text.) In the preceding example, “that” replaces “which” because the construction should be restrictive. The word “blew” is replaced by “was blown” to show that the tree was the recipient of the action that occurred.
When an entire paragraph or sentence is moved for better organization, the strikethrough and underlining can appear a bit daunting. If you see what appears to be an extensive deletion or addition, please look for its complement in the place it was moved to or from. Though your book is being edited online, you should use regular proofreader marks to indicate your instructions to the copyeditor during your author review of manuscript. A list of these marks is included for your reference.
Track Changes
Before you make any changes or additions to a chapter file, please ensure that Word's Track Changes feature is turned on. See the tutorial Tracking Changes in MS Word 2000 and 2002 provided in this set of files. It is essential that you not accept or reject changes your copyeditor made. Instead, explain right in the text what it is you want or don't want.
Author Queries
In redline manuscript, author queries often appear in square brackets. An example is
| [AU: should this be singular or plural? CE]. |
“AU” stands for author. “CE” stands for copyeditor. A useful convention followed by many experienced authors is to place a checkmark beside each author query once it has been resolved.
Please pay special attention to these author queries from your copyeditor. Resolve each author query, providing detailed instructions to the copyeditor as to what you want done. Print your response neatly near the query it resolves. Address the copyeditor as “CE” and sign your input with “AU” (for author). Unanswered or unresolved author queries are very costly because they require additional communication with the author. Such unresolved queries often stop or delay book production (typesetting), putting the book's schedule and publication date in serious jeopardy.
Addition of Substantial New Material
If you need to add more than a line or so of text, structure your additions in inserts. Write “Place text from insert A here,” or just “Insert A,” where you want the new text inserted.
Provide hardcopy labeled, for example, “Insert A for p. xxx.” Attach (paperclip) the insert hard copy to the back of the manuscript page where you want the material inserted. Put your inserts into a separate Word file for each chapter. A file name such as Ch1.inserts.doc is fine. In addition to hard copy, provide these chapter insert files on a 3.5-inch, PC-formatted floppy diskette (or attach them to an e-mail) so they can be added to the chapter files of your book.