News, events, tips and updates from Editors Canada
In this issue:
1. PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION: Enhance your chances
2. WEBINAR RECORDINGS: Catch up on demand
3. #EDITORS20: Theme, session proposals and more
4. VOLUNTEER OF THE MONTH: Dania Sheldon
5. BOOST YOUR RESUMÉ: Get involved
6. MEMBER NEWS: A round of applause!
7. MEMBER BENEFITS: Free helpdesk support for Editors Canada email
8. BRANCH NEWS: A first for francophones across Canada!
9. NEC: Notes from your national executive council
1. PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION: Enhance your chances
Registration for the 2019 professional certification exam is open, until 11:30 p.m., eastern time, on Friday, October 18. Register now and showcase your skills in copy editing!
Exam date: Saturday, November 16, 2019
Exam offered: Copy editing (10 a.m. to 1 p.m., local time)
Locations: Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa (we may add other cities to this list if there is enough demand)
Already registered? It’s time to start studying! Visit the Preparing for Certification page for resources to help you get ready for the exam. And here are some tips from certified editors to improve your chances of passing.
Do:
- Familiarize yourself with the reference books you plan to use. You’re allowed any major dictionary, Editing Canadian English, and up to three more style guides.
- Order and work through the updated Certification Test Preparation Guide for copy editing.
- Practise your exam-taking skills, including speed (time yourself).
- Ensure you’re familiar with the track changes and comments features in Microsoft Word.
- Budget your time. Look at the marks allotted per question, and spend more time on the ones worth the most.
- Follow the instructions!
Don’t:
- Assume you don’t need to practise because you’re a professional editor.
- Wait until the last minute to begin studying.
- Arrive late, flustered, hungry or tired.
- Stray outside the scope of the skill being tested. If you’re taking the copy editing exam, don’t start rewriting or reorganizing the text.
- Leave questions unanswered. Keep an eye on the time so you don’t run out.
Try a sample copy editing question
If you were developing a style sheet for a cookbook, which of the following would you be unlikely to include?
a) endnotes style
b) metric conversions
c) treatment of headings
d) treatment of foreign words
2. WEBINAR RECORDINGS: Catch up on demand
Did you miss an Editors Canada webinar? Many of our webinars have been recorded and are now available for purchase (and some are even free). When you buy a webinar recording, you’ll receive a video file to watch at your leisure on your computer or mobile device. The file is yours to keep, so you can watch it again and again.
Visit our webinar recordings page to see what’s available now. We’re adding new recordings regularly, so be sure to check often.
3. #EDITORS20: Theme, session proposals and more
The conference committee is pleased to announce the theme for our upcoming #Editors20 international conference:
From Papyrus to Pixels: International Editing Trends
Come learn from your editing colleagues around the world in beautiful downtown Montreal. Registration will be open in October, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, be sure to block June 19–21, 2020, on your calendar and book your hotel!
Call for session proposals
A reminder that speaker session proposals need to be submitted to our conference committee no later than Friday, October 18. You can find all the details here. If your proposal is accepted, you will be eligible for a significant discount on the conference registration fee.
Volunteers
The conference committee is currently looking for volunteers for the following key roles:
- Sponsorship coordinator
- Speaker coordinator
- Francophone social media coordinator
If you’re interested in any of these key roles—or interested in volunteering for the conference in general—email Patricia MacDonald for more information.
Social media
Don’t forget to join the conference Facebook group or follow us on Twitter to get all the latest information about the conference. Shares and retweets are also appreciated. Thanks for helping us get the word out!
4. VOLUNTEER OF THE MONTH: Dania Sheldon
With a doctorate in English from Oxford University, Dania Sheldon knew that becoming an academic was an obvious choice. But other aspects of life beckoned—particularly her passion for animal rescue and advocacy—and academia wouldn’t leave room. Still wanting to work with language, she volunteered for Douglas & McIntyre and Ronsdale Press, which led to freelance editing opportunities. Soon, Dania was reconsidering a career in editing.
In 2005, an information session inspired Dania to join Editors Canada and begin many years of volunteering—as professional development co-chair and social coordinator of Editors British Columbia, and as the branch’s representative on the national executive council. Since 2012, Dania has also co-developed each of the four professional certification exams.
In the past, her tendency to overcommit was her biggest challenge and she “learned the hard way.” That said, she thoroughly enjoys her volunteer experiences. “I always come away having learned a great deal from working with my colleagues.”
Dania was one of the judges for the 2019 Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence. She is also a past recipient of the award for her work on Charles Gretton: Clock and Watchmaking Through the Golden Age. Her editing centres primarily around academic articles and books in the humanities, sciences and education-related fields, and she enjoys working on fiction, including as a ghost writer. “I specialize in being versatile,” she says.
Volunteering informs Dania’s personal life too. She has been with the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association (VOKRA) since 2005 and advocates for differently abled cats. In 2017, she published The Book of Lua: Stories and Wisdom from a Little Cat with Mobility Challenges, for children who live with physical, mental, emotional and other differences. Whether for VOKRA or Editors Canada, Dania takes volunteering very seriously, although it’s “never a hardship,” she says. “I just need more hours in a day!”
The volunteer of the month highlights the dedicated people who keep Editors Canada going. Volunteers are the backbone of the association. We are grateful for the many members and affiliates who answer the call when help is needed.
5. BOOST YOUR RESUMÉ: Get involved
Join the translation and editing group
Are you a French-to-English or English-to-French translator? Would you like to provide an important service for your fellow members? Consider joining the Editors Canada translation and editing group! These dedicated volunteers offer their translation and comparative editing services to national committees and the national executive council. Members have the opportunity to hone their skills and network with colleagues.
Interested? Please send an email to Nancy Foran, the group’s coordinator.
Members wanted for the volunteer management committee
The volunteer management committee attempts to ensure Editors Canada volunteers are provided with meaningful volunteer opportunities and are acknowledged for their service. We are currently seeking committee members to help develop and propose methods of acknowledging member contributions and enhancing volunteer experiences.
Upcoming projects include implementing a volunteer directory, researching other editing organizations to learn how their volunteer programs are run, learning how we may enhance our own program, and finding ways to improve communication across all branches and twigs to promote the benefits of volunteering while filling volunteer needs.
Contact committee chair Monica Laane-Fralick for more information.
6. MEMBER NEWS: A round of applause!
Editors Nova Scotia member and PEI resident Virginia (Ginny) McGowan PhD was recently appointed to a federal expert panel to advise on the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy. She has also been invited to present a series of three webinars in collaboration with the International Mentoring Association (IMA) in the IMA Professional Learning Webinar Series.
The webinars are based on her award-winning book Harness the Power of Mentoring: How to Find and Work with the Right Mentor–A Guide for the Solopreneur (April 2019).
The webinars are free for IMA members. IMA membership information and webinar registration links are found on the IMA website.
Editors Canada Member News is where we share information about members and affiliates who win awards, publish books and make their mark in other important ways.
Do you have an achievement you’d like to share? Are you excited about a new project or opportunity that has come your way? Let us tell the world all about it! Please send your stories to the member news coordinator.
7. MEMBER BENEFITS: Free helpdesk support for Editors Canada email
Did you know that professional helpdesk support for editors.ca and reviseurs.ca email is a free benefit of membership?
If you have an @editors.ca and/or @reviseurs.ca email address and need IT support sending, receiving or configuring your email, please visit https://calligo.cloud/ca/create-a-ticket to create a support ticket.
Do you want an email address that tells people what you do and that will not change no matter how many times you switch Internet Service Providers? Learn more about getting an @editors.ca email address.
8. BRANCH NEWS: A first for francophones across Canada!
For the first time, Editors Québec is organizing a workshop that will be offered simultaneously in person and online. The goal of this initiative is to make professional development more easily accessible to both speakers and lovers of French wherever they live in the country.
The workshop, Autorévision, will be held in Ottawa on Friday, November 22. Those registered to participate online will receive a URL a few days in advance.
The workshop will focus on the challenges of self-editing (autorévision) and the editing guidelines set by Horguelin et Pharand et Mossop. Several other methods and principles of self-editing will be explored, accompanied by both unilingual and bilingual exercises for individuals and small groups.
The presenter, Georges L. Bastin, is a highly regarded professor at the Université de Montréal. A traducteur membre of the Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec (OTTIAQ), he serves as president of the Association canadienne des écoles de traduction. He also directs the Groupe de recherche en histoire de la traduction en Amérique latine. He has special interests in editing, editing pedagogy and the history of translation.
For more details about the workshop, or to register, visit the Editors Québec Autorévision web page.
This event is being organized in cooperation with the Network of Translators in Education (NTE).
9. NEC: Notes from your national executive council
One of the amazing things that Editors Canada does is work with many like-minded associations across the country and the world. Recently, Gael Spivak and I were contacted by Rhonda Kronyk from the Indigenous Editors Association with a request for support in securing a Canada Council grant. Since the untimely death of Greg Younging on Friday, May 3, 2019, the Indigenous Editors Association has been undergoing a period of rebuilding and reorganization and is planning to hold an organizational development meeting this fall. I happily wrote a letter of support for the Indigenous Editors Association on behalf of Editors Canada, and Gael offered to help them write their policies and procedures.
Editors Canada has shown its support for the Indigenous Editors Association in the past, and it is my hope that we can continue and expand our support to other initiatives that will benefit both organizations. In the meantime, I look forward to working with the Indigenous Editors Association as they continue to meet the needs of Indigenous editors and others across the country.
Heather Buzila
President
Welcome to Editors Canada!
Editors British Columbia
Patricia Anderson, Annette Gingrich, Jessica Kirby, Mary Ruth Snyder, Rozali Telbis, Liz Warwick, Caroline Wigglesworth
Editors Calgary
Paul Deleske, Rachel Duchesne, Lynn Holte, Elizabeth Mclean
Editors Ottawa–Gatineau
Sharon Griffiths, Julia Gualtieri, Scott Kelemen, Julie Leroux, Sarah Reside, Catherine Richard, Caroline Sarmiento, Victoria Solan
Editors Québec
Beverly Mclaughlin, Camille Bernard-Gravel, Philippe Girard, Laurence Mercier-Giguere, Noémie Perreault-Cypihot, Émilie Pouliot, Sergey Yashunin
Editors Saskatchewan
Michelle Shaw
Editors Toronto
Karen Homer, Rosemary Mantini, Deanna Mcfadden, Diane Mossman, Will Samson, Darcy Shea, Karen Silva, Allison Smith
Answer
a) endnotes style
The national e-news update is produced on behalf of the national executive council by the national office.