IFMSA Proofreading Guide Edition 1, November 2010
Greetings, proofreader! Thank you for taking the time to look through the very first edition of the IFMSA Proofreading Guide! Whether you are already a seasoned editor, or you are about to embark on your very first proofreading assignment, it is my hope that you will find this a useful resource. I believe that high-quality written material play an important role in building a positive image of an organisation in the eyes of external partners. A well-proofread document commands respect and speaks volumes about the professionalism of the organisation that had produced it. This Guide is not intended to be a definitive textbook on English grammar. There are more than enough resources online for this. However, I hope that this Guide will allow you to be aware of the level of English that is expected in an IFMSA document. The tips contained within this Guide will also assist you in making your own documents appear more professional, and will help you with a few of the more common language dilemmas that I have seen over the years working as an IFMSA editor! Finally, I hope that this will be the first of many editions of the Guide. Therefore, your feedback is valuable and will ensure that the next edition addresses important issues that I may have omitted below. If you have any suggestions as to how this Guide can be improved, or any questions regarding any of the points that are covered here, please do not hesitate to contact me at publications@ifmsa.org. Anny Huang Publications Support Division Director 2010 – 2011
Part 1: The big picture Getting Started As with any physical examination that you are taught in medical school, a good proofreader takes a (metaphorical) step back and looks at the big picture before he/she gets right into the actual task of identifying errors and making corrections. What is this publication for? Who is the intended audience? Where does the article that you are proofreading fit into the publication? What language was the article originally written in? If the original article was not in English, who translated it? What is the intended effect of this article? Are you expected to do any editing along with proofreading? If you are also editing, you will also have to keep in mind questions such as what the purpose of your editing is. Is it to decide if the article will be included in the publication? Are you hoping to shorten the article to a certain number of words? Are you also trying to look for parts of the article that are unclear? One important point to decide on while you are looking at the overall picture is the register that you would like for the piece that you are proofreading. Register very roughly means where the tone of the article lies on the spectrum between very casual (i.e. slang) and very formal (i.e. an official UN document). This affects your proofreading greatly, in that certain phrases may be stylistically appropriate in a very casual document, but would need correction if the register of the document is more formal. You may have to read through the document once before you decide on the register that you would like. There is often no right or wrong answer in the register that you should be aiming for. If you take the document in its context, you will usually not be very far off! However, if you are really unsure, a (very) rough guide can be found on the next page. American vs British English: There are many differences between American and British English, both subtle and obvious. These include differences in spelling (such as “color” vs “colour”), vocabulary (such as “faucet” vs “tap”) and prepositions (such as “different than” vs “different from”). Obviously, there is no clear advantage using one or the other, and you should take the demographics of your audience into account when you choose which variety of English you would like your article to be in. However, the most important thing here is consistency. The more formal and professional your document is, the more important it is for you to stick to one of either American or British English throughout the article and the rest of the publication. When you are unsure: The English language can be quite confusing at times. Sometimes, not even the native speakers can determine whether something sounds right or not. If you are stuck, the first and best thing to do is to walk away from whatever you are proofreading, take a break, and then come back to it. What was puzzling you may become a lot clearer after you do this. However,
if you are still stuck, consult another native speaker. Also consider the possibility that there may be more than one correct option, in which case you should take the broader article into account and just pick one of them. Table one: Documents and their registers Document
Register
Policy statement
Formal
Bylaw
Formal
Grant/project proposal
Formal
Scientific journal article
Formal
Letter to external
Formal/semi-formal
Magazine article
Semi-formal
Manual
Semi-formal
Magazine opinion piece
Semi-formal/informal
Interview
Semi-formal/informal
Magazine column
Informal
When to intervene? Sometimes a sentence may not be obviously wrong, but may sound a little awkward. You want to make some changes to it, break it up into several sentences, and insert it elsewhere in the paragraph. However, you don’t want to interfere with the original article so much that it looks nothing like what the author sent you. So what do you do? Firstly, think about the type of document it is. If you are proofreading a formal document such as a policy statement, then it is your role to make the text as clear as possible to the reader without compromising its meaning. Formal documents are not meant to have personality anyway, so do not worry about preserving the author’s writing style. At the other end of the spectrum, essays and creative pieces are ideally meant to be tampered with as little as possible by proofreaders (the editors should be the ones who are suggesting any changes). However, if during the process of proofreading you encounter major problems, please try as much as you can to include the author in making any amendments.
And what if you are working with a document that is somewhere in between the two ends of the spectrum presented above? Unfortunately, the only advice that I can give you is to use your own discretion. Take into account all aspects of the document that I mentioned above, make a decision and stick by it!
Part 2: Specifics of spelling and grammar Capital letters: Every English sentence begins with a capital letter. This rule should only be broken to achieve a specific effect, and even then, you should try your best to follow the following three recommendations: 1. You should know more or less what specific effect you are trying to create with this. 2. This should only occur in titles/sub-titles/blurbs/other “accessory” text, and not the main text of the article. 3. This should only occur in an informal document. It is completely unacceptable for a policy statement or a grant proposal to have lower-case letters at the beginning of sentences. As well as this, proper nouns and the names of months should begin with a capital letter. This rule is slightly less clear-cut with official position titles (for example, “President of the Organisation” vs “president of the organisation”). Again, this depends on the rest of the document. As a rough guide, the more formal the document, the more capital letters are needed. Use your own discretion, but once again, remember to be consistent throughout the document. Nouns: Entire books can be written about English nouns. This clearly isn’t happening here, but there is one mistake that is commonly made within IFMSA circles that you should know about. This concerns the use of the word “training”. In colloquial IFMSA language, we use “training” just like we use any other noun. However, this cannot be done in written language. “Training” is a noun formed by a verb by adding an “-ing” ending, and therefore behaves differently to other nouns. It cannot be pluralised (therefore “trainings” should not appear on any written documents), and it does not take an indefinite article (therefore “a training” is also incorrect). Infinitives of verbs: The infinitive form of a verb is its most basic form. In English, it is the form of the verb that has a “to” attached. Examples of infinitives in English include: “to write”, “to have” and “to be able”. In colloquial language, the “to” part of the infinitive is only loosely attached to the rest of the verb (the stem). This means that although these two parts of the verb still behave as one unit, some words, such as adverbs, can be inserted between them. This can be seen in the following sentences: “You are permitted to quietly chat about your work in the study lounge.”
“She expected him to only like her painting a little.” In written language, however, it is generally considered awkward to split infinitives – that is, to allow another word to come between the two parts of an infinitive. This should definitely not occur in a formal document, unless it is absolutely necessary, and it should be avoided as much as possible in a less formal document. Wherever possible, the intervening word should be moved to a more suitable position. Prepositions: Prepositions are perhaps the trickiest part of the English language. There are often no logical reasons why one preposition should be used over another, and even native speakers get caught out sometimes. This is also the area where non-native-speaker writers make the most mistakes. Here is a quick guide to some of the prepositions that are frequently used in IFMSA-related documents: Table two: Common prepositions Phrase before
Preposition
Noun Phrase After
Standing committee
on
Medical Education
in
the Standing Committee
in
IFMSA
To be
on
the Executive Board
in
the Executive Board (all other uses)
in
the team
at
the general conference
Delegation/delegate
to
an organisation/a conference
in
the proposal
Liaison Officer
to
an organisation
Liaison Officer
for
an issue/a topic
assembly/other
One other point about prepositions is that in a formal document, they should not appear at the ends of sentences. An example of a sentence where a preposition may appear at the end of a sentence is: “He is the man whom we spoke to.” If you encounter a sentence that ends in a preposition when you are proofreading, try to alter the structure of the sentence so that the preposition occurs within the sentence. For example, the sentence above should be altered to read: “He is the man to whom we spoke.” Relative pronouns: Relative pronouns are words such as “that” or “who” that embed one sentence within another. Examples of sentences containing relative pronouns are: “This is the project that I am presenting.” “This is the Official who proposed the amendment.” It is important to be aware of when each relative pronoun should be used. Although the relative pronoun “that” can be used in all instances in spoken language, this is not the case for written language. In written language, we need to pay attention to the word that immediately precedes the relative pronoun. Does this word refer to a person or an object? Here is a table that can assist you in deciding which relative pronoun to use: Table three: Relative Pronouns Antecedent (the word that precedes) Object Person (subject of relative clause) Person (object of relative clause)
Relative pronoun That Who Whom
Apostrophes: The humble apostrophe is often misused. This stands out when it occurs, and can make your readers ask questions about the quality of the publication, so it really pays to know how to use it properly! The most important thing to remember about apostrophes is that it should only be used in contractions or to indicate possession. It is never to be used to form plurals. In order to form plurals, you should add “-s” without an apostrophe, even when what you are trying to pluralise looks a little funny with an “-s”. Here are a couple of examples of correct pluralisation:
‐ DVDs ‐ The 90s Also remember that the possessive “its” does not have an apostrophe. “It’s” with an apostrophe indicates that it is a contraction of “it is”. Other punctuation: The punctuation used in a document also depends on its register. In a formal document, there are certain symbols that should be used minimally. These include: ‐ The dash ( - ) ‐ The ellipsis (...) If you meet either of these in your proofreading, consider using alternative punctuation such as a semi-colon ( ; ) or restructuring and rewording the sentences concerned. Other symbols that should be avoided in a formal document include: ‐ The forward slash ( / ) ‐ The ampersand (&) If you encounter these symbols in your proofreading, please replace them with full words. The forward slash should be replaced with the word “or”, while the ampersand should be replaced with “and”. Abbreviations and contractions: In colloquial language, we tend to use contractions in place of some very common combinations of words, such as: Table four: Contractions Word combination We are Can not You will Let us
Contraction We’re Can’t You’ll Let’s
These contractions are acceptable in colloquial language and for informal (and sometimes semi-formal – use your judgment) documents. However, they are considered unprofessional in formal documents, and therefore should be avoided. The only exception here is the word “o’clock”, which does not need to be written in its expanded form in a formal document, although in a formal document, it is recommended to write time in 24-hour format (for example 15:00) instead of in an “o’clock” format. This rule also applies to the possessive “-’s”. Although this is not technically a contraction, it should also be avoided in a formal document, and an alternative construction should be used
instead. Therefore, instead of using constructions like “IFMSA’s policies”, it is better to write “policies of IFMSA”. Person: The use of the first person tends to be a frequent source of confusion in proofreading. Is it acceptable for the author to use the first person in an article? This, once again, depends on the register of the document. In a formal document, the use of the first person is discouraged. In these situations, it is much better to use the passive voice instead. This means that when you encounter a sentence that reads: “I did X to Y”, you should alter it to read: “X was done to Y.” To give a more concrete example, a sentence such as, “I distributed the report to the Standing Committee” should become, “The report was distributed to the Standing Committee”. In a less formal document, your own discretion as a proofreader should be used. Convoluted sentences: If you were to ask a group of people what their idea of a good sentence is, chances are that you will receive many different answers. Some prefer short, succinct sentences, while others prefer long, poetic ones. When you are proofreading, there is no such thing as the perfect sentence. However, you need to bear in mind that the text must be easily comprehensible by the readers. This is especially true in formal documents such as bylaws and proposals. When sentences are long and convoluted, they often lead to misunderstanding. Therefore, when you encounter such sentences, you should always be asking yourself whether they can be broken down into smaller sentences that convey the message more clearly. Adding emphasis: Authors will often want to ensure that their readers grasp the main points of an article, or that their readers comprehend the significance of a particular statement. Therefore, there is a tendency for many authors to draw attention to certain words in an article by making them bold, italicised or underlined, or even changing the font altogether. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to the best way of dealing with this as a proofreader. However, try to be consistent. Do not use underlines for one article in a publication, and then italics for another. My personal preference is for extra emphasis to be kept to a minimum. This is due to several reasons. Firstly, when text is transferred from a Word document to an InDesign document where the laying out is done, all of the extra information about the text, such as whether it is italicised or not, is lost in the process of transfer. Therefore, the person laying out the publication needs to look through the original document and then add all of these elements to the final copy of the publication manually.
Secondly, I believe that when text is jumping out at the reader, it loses much of its subtlety, and the reader is less able to form their own interpretation of the text. This, however, may be a good thing in some situations, such as in the case of an instructional manual! Finally, I also believe that often, the extra emphasis on certain words may hide poor quality in the writing itself. If the article is well-structured and clear, then would the important points not be clear to the reader already? Why does the author need to use special effects draw your attention to a particular point? Is it because that point is getting lost among a long, forty-line paragraph? Should you be considering making other changes to the article in order for the important points to stand out? Of course, it is often necessary to place extra emphasis on certain words. How you choose to do this should depend on a number of different factors. Firstly, what font is being used? What would look the best in terms of design? The type of text that you are editing should also be a consideration. My personal preference is to make text bold in instructional manuals, but to use italics in more narrative texts. Numbers: In the world of medical publications, you will often work with articles containing numbers. Therefore, the question of whether to write these numbers as words or as numerals is often raised. Clearly, it would be impractical to write large numbers out as words. It is much easier for everyone to leave a number such as 2,125,487 as numerals rather than to write it as “Two million one hundred and twenty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-seven”. However, hopefully you will also appreciate that the sentence, “we have one goal” looks a great deal more professional than the sentence, “we have 1 goal”. Therefore, it is better for smaller numbers to be written out as words. So how small is a “smaller number” and when should you switch from words to digits? Again, different people have different preferences. I prefer to use words up to (and including) the number ten, then changing to numerals from 11 onwards. Referencing: Many articles and policy statements reference journal articles and other sources of information. Therefore, it is important to decide on a referencing system to use for your publication. In the world of medical journals, two main referencing systems are used: Vancouver and Harvard. Official IFMSA-wide publications such as MSI and eVAGUS use the Vancouver system. However, the Harvard system also has its advantages, especially for article authors. There are many excellent websites that can assist you with referencing correctly using a
number of different systems. However, as with everything else in proofreading, it is important to be consistent in the referencing system that you choose to use. And finally ... Good luck with your writing and proofreading! If you have more questions or are stuck, a helpful link is: www.englishgrammar.org