Digital Sub-Editing and Design

Stephen Quinn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136029615
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Film & Video
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This excellent book covers editing in the digital age, demonstrating the tools needed for effective text editing. Learn how to write powerful headlines and captions, and how to edit body text quickly and cleanly. It also concentrates on design in the digital environment, introducing typography and the related issues of readability and legibility. The skills of picture editing are explored, including image selection, cropping, manipulation and the ethics involved. These core skills and methods are then applied to the World Wide Web. Recent research into how people navigate Web pages is considered, and recommends ways to write more effectively for the online medium.


The first section concentrates on editing in the digital age, demonstrating the tools needed for effective text editing. Dr Quinn shows how to write powerful headlines and captions, and how to edit body text quickly and cleanly.

The middle section concentrates on design in the digital environment. Chapter five introduces typography and the related issues of readability and legibility. Chapter six covers the principles of design and how they can be applied to print and electronic publications. Chapter seven looks at the skills of picture editing, including image selection, cropping, manipulation and the ethics involved. Chapter eight investigates other forms of visual presentation such as diagrams, logos, maps and cartoons.

In the final section, these core skills and methods are applied to the World Wide Web. Chapter nine considers recent research into how people navigate Web pages, and recommends ways to write more effectively for the online medium. Chapter ten examines how the principles of print design can (and cannot) be applied to Web pages.

Appendix 1 The basic parts of speech

English has eight parts of speech. Editors need to know them intimately because they are the tools of your trade. Here is a primer on these tools.

1. Nouns

Nouns name people and things. They come in four types:

• common (as the name suggests, these name everyday things. They are generally the words you set in lower case in body text)
• proper (these are the names of things such as people, cities and titles. You capitalize them in body text)
• abstract (these are intangibles such as love, respect and justice. You cannot use your senses to appreciate them)
• collective (these refer to a group of people or things, such as a school of fish or a herd of elephants)

2. Pronouns

Pronouns replace nouns, usually to avoid repetition. They agree with the nouns they represent in gender and number. They can be the subject or the object of a sentence (see the next section for more details). Pronouns come in various forms. They change depending on whether they are the subject or the object. Here are some of the most common:

• personal (these represent people — I, me)
• possessive (denotes ownership — my, mine, your, her, his, its, our, their)
• relative (introduce or connect clauses — who, that, which)
• interrogative (used in asking questions — whose, what)
• indefinite (do not refer to specific people or things, hence the name — anybody, none, each, some, all, both, any, everybody, several)

3. Verbs

The third key part of speech is the verb. Verbs express action or a state of being. (For example, in the sentence ‘I am alive’ the verb ‘am’ conveys a state of being rather than action.) Verbs are also associated with time, action and person. The time and action element is called tense.

English has three basic times (present, past, future) and three basic actions (simple, continuing and completed). Most journalism is written in the simple past tense because of the nature of reportage. By the time a story appears in tomorrow’s paper it must have happened in the past.

Tense

	Simple	Continuing	Completed
Present	I see	I am seeing	I have seen
Past	I saw	I was seeing	I had seen
Future	I shall see	I shall be seeing	I shall have seen

Person

Grammarians distinguish between the singular and plural forms. Thus we have first, second and third person singular and first, second and third person plural, as shown below:

Person	First	Second	Third
Singular	I	thou	he/she
Plural	we	you	they

Thou (second person singular) is considered archaic, and has been replaced by you. Thus, in the case of the verb ‘to see’, we get the simple present form:

I see

You see

She/he sees

We see

You see

They see

And the simple past version is:

I saw

You saw

She/he saw

We saw

You saw

They saw

4. Adjectives

An adjective describes a noun or a pronoun. Think of the ‘ad’ in adjective as a way of remembering this concept — the adjective ‘adds’ to the noun. Another way of expressing this idea is to say an adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun. By far the most common adjectives are the definite article (the) and the indefinite articles (a, an).

Other forms are:

• Demonstrative adjectives (this, that, these, those) identify a noun (this rat or those apples). When used without a noun, demonstrative adjectives become pronouns. (This is my rat.)
• Possessive adjectives (my, your, our) show ownership (my cheese).

Most other adjectives are considered as being absolute (for example: final, perfect) or conveying degree. Absolute adjectives should never acquire any baggage because they are complete on their own. It is impossible to describe something as ‘very unique’ because unique means, well, unique. Similarly, you cannot say something is ‘rather perfect’ or describe someone as ‘somewhat pregnant’. These words are absolute because they stand on their own.

Adjectives of degree can be:

• positive(used as a simple description)
• comparative(used to compare one with another)
• superlative(used to compare one with two or more others)

Thus you would describe a single body of water as hot or a single problem as difficult. But you would distinguish between two things by using the comparative form. The water then becomes hotter than another body of water; the problem is more difficult than another problem. In the case of three or more things, one of the bodies of water will be hottest and one of the problems will be the most difficult. One of the most common mistakes in newspapers relates to confusion over former, latter and last. If you are referring to two things, use former for the first and latter for the second. But if you refer to more than two things, use last for the final thing.

5. Adverbs

An adverb describes or modifies a verb, adjective or another adverb. Again, think of the ‘ad’ in adverb as a way of remembering this concept — the adverb ‘adds’ to the other words. Many adverbs end in ‘ly’. Here are some examples:

He sees clearly

(The adverb ‘clearly’ describes or modifies the verb ‘sees’.)

He found a newly minted coin

(The adverb ‘newly’ describes or modifies the adjective ‘minted’.)

He sees very poorly

(The adverb ‘very’ describes or modifies the adverb ‘poorly’.)

6. Prepositions

A preposition is a linking word — it joins its object with a preceding word or phrase. For example, in the phrase ‘a herd of elephants’ the object is elephants and the preposition links the phrase by telling us what kind of animals are in the herd. In the sentence ‘We are heading to Sydney’ the preposition tells where we are heading. Most prepositions are short. Some examples are: of, to, in, on, for, with, by.

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions are also linking or joining words. They link similar parts of speech. Thus they can link adjectives: ‘fit and well’ or adverbs: ‘slowly but surely’. They also link sentences: ‘You may come. Or you may go.’ and ‘You may come or you may go.’ The most common conjunctions are: and, but, or, nor, yet, however, if, though, although, either, neither. You need to be able to identify conjunctions because you need to know what they are before you can delete them to improve sentences.

8. Interjection

The final part of speech is called an interjection. It is a short exclamation that is outside the main sentence. It often stands alone, as in: ‘Alas! Woe is me!’ As a general rule, subs should avoid using interjections. Using exclamation points for emphasis is poor form — it is the literary equivalent of digging someone in the ribs to point out the punch line of your joke. It means you cannot write well enough to make your point without them.

The exceptions from page 29

English can best be described as a language of...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-title Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• SECTION A: ELECTRONIC EDITING
• SECTION B: DIGITAL DESIGN
• SECTION C: NEW MEDIA
• Appendix 1: The basic parts of speech
• Appendix 2: Photo data sheet
• Books consulted
• Glossary of editing terms
• About the author
• Index