A Discussion with Elle Sandy About the Business of Proofreading

Elle, looking at the stars with our mutual grandparents, 1956.

Elle Sandy is a professional proofreader/editor. We first met in Maine when I was one year old. She is my cousin and there is a great photo I have cherished all my life of my grandparents' four firstborns (all born in 1951-52). My second favorite memory of Elle was frog hunting in Boston when we were eight years old. After circuitous careers, we re-connected through social media. She's an avid reader with keen powers of attention to detail, well-suited to a late life career as a pro proofreader. 

In this era of deteriorating standards regarding the rules of grammar and usage, I thought it would be helpful to let other writers know Elle is a superb editor and proofreader who still has room in her schedule for new clients. Whether sending a manuscript to a publisher for consideration or self-publishing a book or major document, you really want to put your best foot forward. Elle Sandy can help you.  

EN: You've always been an avid reader. Who or what were your biggest influences in this regard?

Elle Sandy: The joke about me has always been that I'm the sort of person that will read the ketchup bottle on the table if there is nothing else available. My earliest reading memories of any consequence were reading both the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew mysteries under the tree between our house and the one next door with the boy next door. I brought the Nancy Drew books, he brought the Hardy Boys. That lasted until I discovered my father's collection of science fiction, mostly Ace Double Books. These were books which had two short novels in each volume, printed upside down from each other. Mysteries were good, but science fiction ignited my imagination! I've also always loved fantasy. Alice in Wonderland was a long-standing favorite of mine. I had an illustrated volume with both Alice stories in it which I loved because it was annotated, giving the background for all the British "in" jokes, such as the Cheshire Cat and why the Hatter was Mad. I guess you'd say the authors who first formed my love of reading were Caroline Keene and Lewis Carroll. 

EN: Are you affiliated with a group of proofreaders?

ES: Yes, there are some Facebook groups, private ones, that are proofreading groups I became associated with as a student of proofreading. However, there is also a group I have recently become a member of, the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, NAIWE.  I'm still getting my footing there. The place where I have decided to "put up my shingle," so to speak, is Fiverr, a freelancer's shop. I have a gig listed there as a medical proofreader, since I also have earned a Certificate in Medical Transcription. Fiverr requires that some freelancers, like me, prove their proficiency so clients can be sure their freelance hires know what they are doing.

EN: I agree with you that there is a lot of bad spelling and grammar on social media. What's especially atrocious is how many self-published books have been produced seemingly without being proofed at all. Care to comment on this?

ES: My fellow proofreading graduates and I have been known to bemoan the apparent blatant disregard many authors have for the printed word that they rely on to communicate. It is painful at times to read a newspaper, magazine, or book that desperately needs proofreading. Most could use a good editor as well. Sentence fragments are often orphaned. Other sentences are page long run-on sentences. Granted, there are some great writers who use excessively long sentences, but that is not something everyone can pull off well. I know that good editing and proofreading can be a bit costly, but by scrimping on these services, most writers are being penny wise and pound foolish. Readers will only buy bad authors once or twice before they have had enough, and guessing at the meaning of a sentence with incorrect punctuation and spelling can be very confusing.

EN: Do you have any specific kinds of clients that you are seeking to work for?

ES: As I mentioned, I have earned a certificate in Medical Transcription, so I am particularly interested in medical proofreading. However, I will proofread just about anything, with the exception of biographies and technical material which have a tendency to put me to sleep! I do charge a bit more for medical proofreading, because it is exacting and requires specialized knowledge. But I enjoy ferreting out and correcting errors. It's almost like a puzzle that requires special knowledge and attention to detail. I worked on the Gutenberg Project for a while, and still go back now and again, even though it is largely volunteer, because I find it challenging. 

EN: There are a number of different style manuals. Which are the most popular today and why?

ES: First, let's define what a style manual is. A style manual (or guide, or sheet) is a set of rules for writing. The standard has changed over the years, because the language has changed and even technology has impacted the rules we write by. You would choose a particular style sheet because the industry standard is different for the different purposes of writing. For a scholarly or academic writing, you would probably want to use the APA (American Psychological Association) guide, but for a newspaper article, you would want to follow the AP (Associated Press) style guide. While you can choose any style sheet you want to follow, it's usually best to choose the sheet that your prospective publisher follows. The one I usually use is CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) because most book publishers follow it. However, if I'm proofreading for medical journals or a thesis, I'll use the APA guide. The differences aren't huge, but can be confusing to someone who doesn't know the difference.

EN: What are you doing to promote your services?

ES: Aside from doing interviews like this, you mean? Currently, I'm mostly networking and gaining a reputation, I hope, through some volunteer work, like the Gutenberg Project. I do occasionally speak to people I run into who have web pages, and offer to look them over. My services are listed with several social media sites, like LinkedIn, and I'm offering my services through freelancer's sites, like Fiverr. I hope these efforts will bear fruit. For all your readers who are writers, remember, it is very easy to overlook your own errors, and then you have to bare - excuse me, that should be bear - the consequences! 

EN: How long have you been a paid proofreader and how did you get into this line of work?

ES: As with many of my fellow proofreaders, I have felt bothered by the lack of good writing in social media. Mostly, we try to just ignore the people who say "we went over to there house" or "I wanted 2 go 2", but find that we have a desire to make the world more readable. I don't think that many of my fellow students thought they had many things wrong in the areas of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and word choice. 

That is before we got involved in a class in proofreading. 

My particular downfall was commas. I came to think of them as little wild animals, and I was definitely not alone in that! However, with persistence and a perfectionist streak, I have learned how to place them correctly. I have a love of reading and the printed word, and have always felt that proper use of the English language minimized the number of misunderstandings and helped to further civilized debate. So, when my husband died last year, I looked around for something to do with writing. I found a course which I was sure I could complete by the end of the pandemic, and sure enough, last December I earned a Certificate in Proofreading. At the age of 69, I had a new career.

* * *  

To contact Elle Sandy, visit her page on Fiverr.
https://www.fiverr.com/s2/babf26d47d

Though she specializes in proofreading medical documents, you ma contact her for other kinds of proofreading projects. If she is unable to take an assignment, she's part of an association that has reliable, capable help for your proofing needs.

The Upside of Ignorance; the Downside of Knowledge

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
    the more knowledge, the more grief.
--Ecclesiastes 1:18

"Ignorance is bliss; 't is folly to be wise."
--Thomas Gray

* * * 

It's interesting. We live in what has been called the information age. We're completely inundated with information on nearly anything we want to learn more about. Has this made us happier?  

There are a variety of ways in which ignorance can be more satisfying than knowledge. Here are a few examples that I've observed.

In my article Data Analytics: The Three Most Important People in the Room, I show one way in which company decision makers can be happily self-deceived by ignoring the risk factors with regard to a desired decision. 

As has often been noted, "we don't know what we don't know." Sometimes this ignorance is simply a lack of experience. Sometimes, it is the result of our own efforts to block out what we don't want to hear. 

In the political realm two instances come to mind. When the governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, some of his efforts to make a positive impact were thwarted because he brought his own team of people he trusted to Washington, people who didn't really understand how to get things done in the Federal realm. They were ignorant because of their lack of experience inside the Beltway.

According to Michael Lewis in The Fifth Risk, this ignorance of how things work at the Federal level was amplified more than ten-fold when Donald Trump was elected because it was a willful ignorance. The incoming president didn't understand the complexity involved in the transition process. When former governor Chris Christie saw this he stepped up to assist in what is generally one of the biggest challenges of a new administration. According to Lewis, the newly elected president chose to shut his ears.  

Lewis went on to cite Jared Kushner's surprise that when taking over the government the incoming leadership team has to appoint all new department heads to run everything. Kushner assumed that the people working there would still be at their posts, as would happen when a new CEO takes over a company. 

A reviewer of The Fifth Risk at Amazon.com wrote these thoughts, which were the impetus for today's blog post:

Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.

* * * 

It happens in boardrooms. It happens in government. It happens in life. There are no sure things when it comes to the future. Life involves risk. How to find the balance between worrying too much and too little about every little thing is just one problem we face. If we knew how many ways our little world could be upended in the next 24 hours, we might never be able to sleep. 

Some disasters are unavoidable. Others, however, are set in motion by willful ignorance. 

For example, an acquaintance of mine was hospitalized for eight days due to a health-related condition that he'd ignored. It almost cost him his life. When I spoke with him afterwards, his sage advice was this: "Don't ignore the signs."

Disasters (generally) don't just happen. Whether running a country or just taking care of your own day-to-day health--both physical and mental--you usually have clues when things need to be addressed.  

* * * 

All these things reminded me of the Rolling Stones hit single, "Mother's Little Helper".

     "Kids are different today, " I hear every mother say
     Mother needs something today to calm her down
     And though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill
     She goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper

And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day  

The song is about pill-popping as a way of escape. Of course there are other ways people self-medicate, choosing to avoid rather than face issues. The end result, whether it's a car, a business, your health or a relationship, is a breakdown.

* * * 

Life is hard, and knowledge can be painful. How we choose to address all the issues that we grapple with is up to us.  

One useful starting point might be what is known as The Serenity Prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept   

the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can, 

And wisdom to know the difference.”

Jack London Bio Offers New Insights While Raising Old Questions

At one time Jack London was the highest paid writer in America. There were two things that gave his writing such force. First, the stories he told were drawn from experiences he’d lived, adventures that transcended the norm. Second, and equally important, was his skill at storytelling.

His fame, however, came as the result of two other qualities. He was extremely persistent and incredibly prolific. Once he’d determined to be a serious writer he purportedly produced a minimum of 1000 words a day, every day, till the day he died.

The title of the biography I read this week is Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor. Although this is the first biography of London that I’ve read, I’ve been quite familiar with much of his life story because two of his novels — Martin Eden and John Barleycorn — are autobiographical.

For the record, Earle Labor is the acknowledged major authority on the novelist Jack London, serving as the curator of the Jack London Museum and Research Center in Shreveport. What makes Labor’s labors so authoritative is that he’s read every piece of correspondence that exists, to or from London, as well the diaries of the women London’s life story.

* * * 

Like many schoolchildren I’d read “To Build a Fire” and “Call of the Wild” during my youth. My intro to Martin Eden came years later at the first writers’ conference I’d attended. One of the instructors, who by his early 30’s had published over 3000 articles, stated that young writers would glean much of value from reading that book, and indeed I did.

Earle Labor begins the story of Jack London’s life by noting his accomplishments: fifty books and international fame by the time he died at age forty. The first half of those forty years included delivering newspapers starting at 3:00 a.m. before going to school at age eight; dropping out of school at age thirteen to to work twelve to eighteen hours a day as a child laborer; becoming an oyster pirate at age fifteen, working as a sailor on a seal hunting schooner, riding the rails as a hobo, serving time in prison for something he didn’t do, searching for gold in the Klondike and more.

In some ways London’s adventures reminded me of Hemingway. Both were the kind of “man’s man” that seemed drawn to violence. (London wrote many stories about pugilists, Hemingway wrote about bullfighting.) Both seem to have had short fuses and personalities that would put them out of favor in our contemporary world.

London's ship, The Snark. He loved the open sea.

London’s first successful story was something he wrote for a contest, in part because he needed the money. Despite being a school dropout, he won the $25 prize against competition that included Stanford journalism students and the like. Getting from first base to fame took a little more time, but he was determined. To expand his vocabulary he learned a new word every day, writing it on a piece of paper, placing it in his pocket and using it in conversations until it was totally embedded.

That’s exactly the kind of thing I look for in young writers today, not just making an effort to expand one’s vocabulary but deliberately and consciously striving to improve the various aspects of their craft.

* * * 

There are aspects of Jack London’s life that are less than flattering. To his credit, Labor did not attempt to sugarcoat London’s story. I was appalled by some of the letters he wrote to his daughter. They were cruel and unwarranted., which raises the age old question as regards the relationship between an artist and his or her art. Should we think less of the art when we discover that the artist was a jerk or was a fiend?

* * * 

Three decades ago, I had a writer friend who was a big Jack London fan. I must have been discussing Martin Eden with him which opened the door to another fact of London’s life, London the Socialist. His experiences in sweat shops and other early life indignities obliged him to speak out for the underdog.

In the latter part of his life he acquired land and planned to build his dream home on a thousand acre spread in Sonoma, California. Two weeks before he and his second wife were to move into the home London called Wolf House, it was destroyed by fire. Was it arson? Had he made too many enemies advocating for socialism? My friend believed so.

Earle Labor makes a case for an alternate explanation. In 1995 some forensic scientists visited the ruins of Wolf House. The fire occurred on a day when the interior of the structure had been rubbed down with linseed oil. It was an extremely hot day and combustible fumes were in the air as the oil dried. They believe the rags ignited due to spontaneous combustion and the disastrous fire was the result.

“A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem.”

London made his mark because he learned early the kinds of stories that would sell. Here’s some advice for writers that was published in The Editor in 1903. It is an excerpt from an article titled “Getting Into Print.”

Fiction pays best of all, and when it is of a fair quality is more easily sold. A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration. Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible — if you care to see in print things you write. (In this connection don’t do as I do, but do as I say.) Humor is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded… Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.

Reading Labor’s London biography has prompted me to follow up with a return to reading some of the author’s other books and stories. How about you?

Related Links
My review of London's short story A Piece of Steak
Jack London: An American Life

Book Burning 101 -- Quotes from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

It was a pleasure to burn. --Opening line. 

"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"
He laughed. "That's against the law!"
"Oh. Of course."

"It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his 

thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, 

and then I came along in two minutes and boom! 

it's all over." 

• School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?

You can't build a house without nails and wood. If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood.' If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. 

"Remember the firemen are rarely necessary. 

The public stopped reading of its own accord." 

* * * 

Last night we had a fire in the fire pit. In addition to sticks and logs we also burned some books. Before we're accused of book burning in the pejorative sense, these were books that a friend gave us for the purpose of burning. They were from a bookstore which gets credit for unsold books. Instead of sending books back to the distributor--which would be a shipping expense--they send the front covers so the remains can't be sold.  The ashes from this book burning adventure might me called "the remains of the day."

* * * 

Related Links

Quotes About Books

Eight Books By Ed Newman

Key Takeaways from Michael Shellenberger's Apocalypse Never

Photo: Gary Firstenberg

I've spent a lifetime listening to doomsayers tell us we will run out of oil in 10 years. It never happens. So why does anyone keep listening? Why do these spokespeople have any credibility left? 

And then there's the climate crisis.

The coming "end of the world" caused by global warming is an even more serious matter, they say, because it's claimed that the polar ice caps will melt and multiplied millions will die as a result. Is this a fact or another form of spin designed to manipulate the masses?

Ten years ago or so I read an article by a woman scientist who attempted to correct this latter narrative on Wikipedia. Her science-based information was deleted in order to maintain the narrative already established. She was not a climate change denier. She simply had facts to share that might help give balance to what was being said.

Now I'm not saying there are no climate issues. What I am saying is that I don't trust the people inundating us with dogmatic assertions about what is happening when these same people have already been proven unreliable a hundred times in the past. 

This is what I found so refreshing last year when I discovered Michael Shellenberger's Apocalypse Never. Shellenberger has been an environmental activist his whole life, becoming founder and president of Environmental Progress Research and policy organizations that have been advocating for clean power as a means to save nature without sacrificing economic prosperity. In other words, he has been immersed in these matters for over three decades.

Shellenberger wrote his book to counter the tsunami of claims that a climate Armageddon is just around the corner. He draws on the latest science to recommend practical solutions for our current issues. He is not a climate change denier. Rather, his message is that things aren't as bad as many environmental activists and the media paint them to be. His view is that there are more reasons to me optimistic than pessimistic.

Last year I borrowed Apocalypse Never from a friend and found it to be a refreshing message that I could identify with. This week I purchased Summary & Analysis of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. It's a book in the Snap Summaries series, in a similar vein as Sparknotes overviews of literary classics.

What follows here is the Table of Contents, essentially a list of the key takeaways from the book. It is not meant as a substitute for reading the original. Knowing that not everyone who reads my blog will read Shellenberger's book, I share this summary so that you're familiar with some of the important ideas it seeks to convey.

Key Takeaway #1: There is nothing catastrophic about current climate trends.

Key Takeaway #2: Climate change has not increased the frequency or intensity of natural disasters.

Key Takeaway #3: The earth is greener today than it was 35 years ago. (Examples abound. There has been wonderful restoration of our St. Louis River basin which was once a disaster. There are probably no rivers in America with fire departments dealing with river fires as it used to be when I was growing up in Cleveland.)

Key Takeaway #4: The media's fixation with plastic waste distracts us from bigger threats to marine life.

Key Takeaway #5: Bio plastics are not better for the environment than conventional plastics.

Key Takeaway #6: Supporting the economic development of lower income countries is the most important thing developed countries can do to save more natural habitats.

Key Takeaway #7: Rising economic growth, not activism, is what saved the whales. 

Key Takeaway #8: Historically the shift from energy dilute to energy dense fuels is what has halted severe environmental exploitation.

Key Takeaway #9: Renewables are not always better, cheaper or more sustainable.

Key Takeaway #10: Nuclear energy is one of the cheapest, cleanest and safest sources of electricity.

Key Takeaway #11: Many environmental nonprofits are anti-nuclear because they take money from fossil fuel investors.(As Woodward and Bernstein were exhorted by Deep Throat: "Follow the money.")

Key Takeaway #12: Most mainstream environmentalism is a thinly veiled form of Neo Malthusianism. 

Key Takeaway #13: Apocalyptic environmentalism is a religion that fills the modern atheist need for meaning and purpose.

* * * 

Read my other articles on Shellenberger and his work:

Global Warming Is Not the End of the World Says a Longtime Voice of the Green Movement

Michael Shellenberger: Fighting the Good Fight 

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Still Two Weeks Left to See Some Fab Paintings from Students at the Great Lakes Academy Here in Duluth

 

This past several years I've been following the work of the 

Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art.

Currently there is a show at the Dovetail Cafe & Marketplace

aka the Folk School in the Lincoln Park District.

The coffee is satisfying, the still life paintings superb.

It's a wonderful collection and rewarding example of what's possible

for those determined to master the arts.

Stars of this show:

Kelly Schamberger

Benjamin McGaffey

Patrick Glander

Jake Tremble

Eric Rauvola

Archie Page

Related:

Great Lakes Academy Celebrates Third Year

Cleanup Time: Notes & Quotes from Miscellaneous Scraps of Paper

I have a half dozen half-completed blog posts on various themes from the Founding of America to the Madness of Crowds, the Genomic Revolution and Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie." With nothing quite complete I decided to straighten my office and discard all the scraps of paper the gather on every surface like house dust. Here are some notes from a few of these miscellaneous scraps as they were discarded.

The sources, in many cases, are identified. Unfortunately, some of these are lines from films that I can no longer identify. The best way to enjoy poetry and notes from scraps of paper is to read slowly, in a contemplative frame of mind.

* * *

Sing Your Song 

* * * 

Be Your Best Self

* * *

In the immortal words of Popeye, "I am what I am."
Cate Blanchett as Mary Mapes, in Truth

* * * 

"The problem with remembering everything is that you can't forget anything."

* * *

Why it is so important to see the night sky.

* * * 

A big lie, if repeated enough, becomes truth.

* * * 

Notes from End of the Tour

"We can't be direct so we end up saying the weirdest things."

"If you're just operating by habit, then you're not really living."

"Things don't affect people the way they used to be."

* * *

"As great as you are you'll never be greater than yourself."
--Bob Dylan, High Water (for Charley Patton)

* * * 

"Not all who wander are lost."
Second line of JRR Tolkien's poem "The Riddle of Strider."

* * * 

Favorite Childhood Games

Geography
Battleship
Stratego
Risk
Manhunt

* * * 

Do Justly
Love Mercy
Walk Humbly
--Micah 6:8

* * * 

And so it goes...

Word of the day: Turgid