Styling Manuscript Elements

Understanding, mastering, and styling journal manuscript elements to perfection

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Who can take this course?

  • Copyeditors working on scientific journals
  • Freelance copyeditors learning to copyedit academic journals
  • Anyone seriously considering a career in academic copyediting

Course overview

Basic details

  • 32 video lessons (totaling over 13 hours), accessible 24 Ă— 7 for a period of 4 months
  • Approximate study time required: 7–8 weeks to complete the lessons and the practice material
  • Explains the basic characteristics of any design element and the main things a copyeditor has to take care of
  • Outlines the main tasks of the copyeditor in document styling and a practical method of ensuring quality
  • Provides the theoretical background as well as the practical aspects of handling over 25 manuscript elements
  • Downloads include
    • samples for a visual understanding of the various concepts explained in the course
    • sample files with the various elements identified
    • files for practice
    • copyeditor's checklist template for a journal article

Addresses your needs

  • Every one of you—those entering the copyediting profession, freelance as well as full-time editors—can learn from the convenience of your homes
  • Self-paced study (any time, weekdays, weekends, with breaks whenever you want)
  • Mobile access to course lessons via a dedicated app
  • Replay lessons any number of times till the concepts become clear to you
  • Interaction with participants and instructor in the form of comments within the course; email support also available
  • World-class training at affordable pricing, part-payments also possible
  • Provides visual examples of most concepts
  • This course has The Art of Copyediting guarantee 
I want to take this course!

Course instructor

  • Venkataraman Anantharaman, PhD, is the Founder of The Art of Copyediting
  • Has 25 years of editorial experience (22 years in-house), first as a copyeditor and later a manager and director of editorial programs
  • Spent almost his entire career training people and evolving his own methods of teaching copyediting over the years
  • Was the only Asian speaker at Editing Goes Global, the first international conference for editors, convened by Editors’ Association of Canada (now Editors Canada), Toronto, June 2015
  • Is writing a book tentatively titled Principles of Copyediting (currently about 312,500 words)
  • Concepts and examples presented in the The Art of Copyediting courses are simply those culled from his book

Why this may be important for you!

  • Gives you detailed theoretical and practical aspects of handling over 25 manuscript elements
  • Establishes the base for you to understand principles of document styling
  • Prescribes methods for ensuring quality and consistency in document styling
  • Will make you feel confident about handling journal elements, whatever be the preferred style

Benefits of taking this course

  • At the end of the course, you will a clear idea as to what you have to do with every element in a journal manuscript
  • You will be able to master document styling—handle any journal, any style, with clarity and confidence
  • You will learn some practical aspects of element identification and document styling that may otherwise take years to grasp and comprehend
  • You will understand the fascinating variety of complexities that can be associated with an article title page—and why such things must form the basic steps in learning copyediting

The Art of Copyediting guarantee

This course comes with The Art of Copyediting guarantee of satisfaction

  • The value of content that you will receive and its practical use in earning will far outweigh the amount you pay for the course
  • Brings together the cumulative effect of 25 years of learning and training by the instructor
  • The course is completely self-contained; you do not need access to any specific style manual, although you can relate whatever you learn to any manual you may have access to
  • You will learn within 8 weeks and bypass the many years of struggle and conscious reading of various books and style manuals to pick up what is presented here
  • The course (built from scenarios encountered by copyeditors over 15 years) will answer almost any practical problem you may encounter—or at least empower you with sufficient information to help you solve newer problems

Course Outline

  • Preliminaries
    • Typography, typesetting, main tasks of copyeditor in document styling, quality assurance
    • Document types, publication types, journal section heads
  • Journal elements-1
    • Article title
    • Part-titles, two-part titles, and subtitles
    • Possible footnotes to an article title
    • Author names: general information, publishing conventions, and style preferences
  • Journal elements-2
    • Grant information
    • What is an affiliation and common errors in affiliations
    • Order of components in affiliations
    • General guidelines for styling affiliations
    • Mechanics of linking author names and affiliations
  • Journal elements-3
    • Corresponding author
    • Disclosures and disclaimers
    • Author-related footnotes
    • Manuscript acceptance information
    • Title-page footnotes: balancing principles and style preferences
    • Running heads
  • Journal elements-4
    • Abstracts: essence, types, independence, guidelines for editing
    • Miniabstract
    • Keywords
    • Nomenclature
    • List of abbreviations
    • Understanding section heads, practical guidelines for styling
  • Journal elements-5
    • Callouts: their importance, sequence, implications of renumbering
    • Lists: types, typography, case and punctuation, headings in lists
    • Handling extracts, introductory quotes, and dialogs
  • Journal elements-6
    • Notes (footnotes, endnotes)
    • Note added in proof
    • Appendices: general and exceptional placements, numbering of appendices
    • Acknowledgments
    • Supplementary material
    • Layouts that can vary
    • Giving instructions to the typesetter

Course highlights

  • Explains document types and publication types and the relationship between the two
  • Underlines the need for constant awareness (during copyediting) of the document type, publication type, and journal section to which an article belongs
  • Explains the various points to be taken care of in the title
  • Discusses subtle points relating to two-part titles, part-titles, and subtitles
  • Discusses threadbare the unexplained but most logical order for title-page (TP) footnotes (see next bullet)
  • Outlines 21 types of information that can be set as TP footnotes (with live examples for each)
    • 9 possible categories of footnotes to the article title
    • Affiliations set as footnotes
    • 6 types of author-related footnotes
    • Correspondence information
    • 4 elements that can be set as TP footnotes (Acknowledgments, Abbreviations, Manuscript acceptance information, DOI)
  • Explains how many of these elements may be set differently in accordance with style
  • Outlines variations in naming conventions across the globe and the approach used in academic publishing for information storage and retrieval
  • Defines affiliation in journal work and provides examples of commonly noted errors in affiliations
  • Examines the components of affiliations and possible complexities in arranging the components
  • Provides practical guidelines for handling author affiliations
  • Explains the mechanics of the linking of author names and affiliations (which in turn give rise to various style preferences, many of which are indicated visually as part of downloads)
  • Discusses specifics relating to handling of the corresponding author footnote
  • Explains the relationship between type of research, author affiliation, and disclosures/disclaimers as well as scenarios where a disclosure may not be necessary
  • Outlines six possible categories of author-related footnotes
  • Explains the content and purpose of running heads, common running heads, and well as principles of creating short titles from complex ones
  • Discusses types of abstracts, typesetting considerations, and practical guidelines for handling abstracts
  • Explains the purpose and use of keywords in academic publications
  • Discusses handling a nomenclature list and a list of abbreviations—and the subtle differences between them
  • Provides practical guidelines for handling section heads as well as possible differences between logical subheads and typographic subheads
  • Discusses callouts in detail (importance, things to consider while providing callouts, implications of renumbering display elements in relation to callouts, and page makeup in the absence of callouts)
  • Discusses types of lists, list typography, and case and punctuation in lists with and without headings as well as for list items that are a continuation of the introductory line
  • Explains principles of handling extracts, with and without attribution, and differentiating them with introductory quotes, and extending the principle to handle dialogs
  • Discusses citation of appendices, logical reasons for their general and exceptional placements (positioning), as well as numbering of display elements in appendices
I want to take this course!

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Choose one of two offers for this course

Styling Manuscript Elements-1

$149

Single full payment

Access to 32 video lessons totaling over 13 hours

Access to course videos: 24 Ă— 7, for 4 months

Mobile access to courses via a dedicated app

Interaction with course participants and instructor via comments; also email support

A wealth of downloads that serve as reference documents, practice material, and working aids

Buy now

Styling Manuscript Elements-2

$89

Two part-payments: $89 upfront and another $89 after 30 days

Access to 32 video lessons totaling over 13 hours

Access to course videos: 24 Ă— 7, for 4 months

Mobile access to courses via a dedicated app

Interaction with course participants and instructor via comments; also email support

A wealth of downloads that serve as reference documents, practice material, and working aids

Subscribe now
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