★★★★★ : Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) (Hardcover) by Scott Norton, reviewed by C. J. Singh on amazon.com, copy posted June 4, 2009 (21 of 23 people found the review helpful.) – See all my reviews
In teaching courses on editing at UC Berkeley extension, I assigned various books that focused on grammar, usage, proofreading, copyediting, and publishing. I searched for a book on developmental editing. None. “The Chicago Manual of Style fifteenth edition, merely mentions the subject. Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) is unique.
Scott Norton defines developmental editing as “a significant structuring or restructuring of a manuscript’s discourse” and observes that unlike copyediting it cannot be “demonstrated with brief examples. So I’ve adopted the strategy of creating extended narrative examples. Although fictitious and intentionally exaggerated, these ‘case studies’ reflect the range of authors, clients, and developmental assignments.”
The artfully constructed case studies Norton presents engage the reader throughout the book — from the first chapter, “Concept: Shaping the Proposal” to the final chapter, “Display: Dressing Up the Text.” Two examples of his creative case-study approach follow.
“Thesis: Finding the Hook” (pp. 48-67) begins with the developmental editor (DE) taking a first look at the book proposal and noting that the two coauthors, an anthropologist and a sociologist, both second generation Mexican Americans “had too much to say on their subject, and many of their theses contradicted each other” (p. 51).
editingcraft 