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Prior days' news: By date | Search This week's print issue Back issues: By date | Search May 2, 2008Princeton U. Press Recalls Typo-Filled Book and Says It Will ReprintPrinceton University Press has recalled all copies of one of its spring titles after discovering more than 90 spelling and grammar errors in the 245-page work. The book, Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District, by Peter Moskos, was published on Thursday in an initial press run of 4,000 copies. In what appears to be a first, the press plans to reprint the book and have it back in stores later this month, after the errors have been corrected. Mr. Moskos is an assistant professor of law, police science, and criminal-justice administration at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. From 1999 to 2001, as part of his graduate work in sociology at Harvard University, he worked as a police officer in Baltimore. No one alleges any wrongdoing by Mr. Moskos, nor has the book’s factual substance been impugned. The errors came to light when the author’s friends and family members began sending him lists of the numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes they had noticed. “I was flabbergasted and embarrassed,” said Peter Dougherty, the press’s director. “This is a terribly embarrassing matter for Princeton University Press.” He added, “We’re very proud of the book, which makes the embarrassment all the greater.” He said that Mr. Moskos’s manuscript had been given to an inexperienced copy editor who failed to do the job properly. “We take a lot of pride in the quality of our copy editing,” he said, citing the publisher’s 103-year track record. “In this case, we messed up very, very badly.” Asked how much the recall would cost, Mr. Dougherty replied, “a lot.” Mr. Moskos has been writing about the episode on his blog. In an interview, he said that he suspected the errors appeared in the original manuscript and slipped by the copy editor. The press’s response, he said, showed “a lot of professionalism.” He added, “Colleagues I’ve spoken to have said, ‘Man, I wish my publisher would correct my errors!’” —Jennifer Howard Posted on Friday May 2, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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The critical work of proofreading is a low-wage position. Proofreaders ought to be among the higest paid in the field of publishing.
— Jes Simmons May 2, 03:47 PM #
We all have had the experience of seeing one of our bloopers get through our own reading, the copy editor, and the page proofs. I’ll admit to one from my first book. The “Medea complex” became the “Media complex.” Actually, given the way the presidential campaign is going, I should claim authorship for a prescient coinage! Best, Peter
— peter hoffer May 2, 03:56 PM #
This is what happens when you try and cut corners and refuse to pay decent wages. Many companies forget that their publications represent certain standards of work and quality. If you refuse to invest in quality (and skilled, experienced people) at the front end, you’ll be wasting more money on the back end, as evidenced by Princeton University Press. I gather that hiring the “inexperienced copy editor” was cheaper than hiring one who had actually done similar work…
— Helen May 2, 04:12 PM #
when university presses are forced to adhere to the cost-cutting policies of the private sector we are all in trouble. Yet this incident should be the occasion for reexamination of the prevalence of market-oriented university press policies. They need to be subsidized to pay decent fees to editors as well as proof readers and copy-editors.
— stanley aronowitz May 2, 04:18 PM #
Or the “highest” paid . . . sorry Jes S., I couldn’t resist.
— Terry May 2, 04:27 PM #
Hopefully, the inexperienced copy editor will not soon be an inexperienced ex-copy editor (or copy ex-editor?)
— richard May 2, 04:30 PM #
Editors? Proof readers? I thought the Wikipedia Manual of Stile was going to do all of this for us’uns automagically.
Writing always benefits from professional editing. All it involves is picking one thing from amongst an infinite number of alternatives.
You realize who will get his/her head chopped off, don’t you?
Right – an editor.
— Bob Sams May 2, 04:35 PM #
There is no such thing as a decent wage. If you don’t like the wage, don’t take the job. If you take the job, do it right or give the wage back. It’s called personal responsibility, a virtue at the bottom of the list under socialism.
— Mike May 2, 04:45 PM #
Perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to blame the university press, the copeditor, or market-oriented press policies. Didn’t the author have the opportunity to review the page proofs after the poor copy editing was done? If relatives and friends could find lists of errors, surely the author could have spotted at least some of them, alerted the production editor, and insisted that the errors be fixed and a second set of proofs reviewed before the book was published.
— Pamela May 2, 04:51 PM #
Being blamed for inexperience is what often happens to junior staff. Face it, experienced copy-editors were inexperienced at some time in their lives. There is plenty of responsibility to go around, including a share to be given to the copy-editor’s manager or supervisor for failing to check a beginner’s work.
— Elizabeth May 2, 04:59 PM #
WHAT proof reading???
NINETY spelling and grammar errors in a book this size is deplorable!
My guess is the inexperienced copy-reader either did not proof it at all, or is not qualified to be hired for ANY proof-reading job. What a blot on Princeton
University Press. Thank goodness they are recalling the first edition of the book and re-submitting it to (another, more qualified) proof-reader. I assume they will submit the corrected version of the book through a 2nd proofing session – just to be sure, before sending it to press. (I would!)
— G May 2, 05:34 PM #
Wouldn’t it be nice if this started a new wave of careful attention to copyediting and proofreading? Many presses are skimping on these services and sometimes the quality of what comes out of a reputable press is… well, shameful.
Thank you, Elizabeth (#10), for pointing out that a new copyeditor’s work should always be supervised and re-checked.
— denise May 2, 05:56 PM #
I first met someone who became one of my closest friends about 15 years ago—the day after she and most of her fellow copy editors had just been fired by a major university press. That august institution had decided to outsource most of its copy editing, wouldn’t you know.
Fast forward 15 or so years. I’ve published and reviewed a goodly number of books, and can say that few publishers, including university presses, bother to pay for real editing AT ALL any more. The lucky author gets a proofreader who, if one is lucky, actually knows or can fake knowledge of the subject matter of the book at hand. Who knows? Perhaps the “Media Complex” was actually a correction made by a helpful proofreader who figured “Medea” for some kind of freaky typo. I had a similar experience with my first book . . . fortunately I was able to talk the proofreader into retracting the “correction.”
Oh, yes, and that proofreader or (in those rarest of cases) editor will probably be working out of his/her home, and paid by the job at a rate which, if the job is done responsibly, hardly amounts to minimum wage.
That’s what’s happened to publishing.
— Sat Churmit-Dazhy May 2, 06:35 PM #
Pamela (#9): While I see your point, and while I believe authors should be responsible with their own prose — including all of the mechanics — proofreading one’s own material really is more difficult than proofreading someone else’s. The author already knows “how it goes,” and is thus more likely than a proofreader to overlook things.
I’ve often been advised to read things word-for-word backwards. This is of some usefulness when it comes to recognizing typos, but hardly helps in catching problems of syntax.
— Sat Churmit-Dazhy May 2, 06:39 PM #
If it were Four Courts Press, the ninety orthographic and grammatical errors would be in the introduction alone.
— Gustave May 2, 06:39 PM #
Yes, a “copeditor” is exactly what’s needed for this book – thanks, Pamela.
Seriously, Pamela’s right: authors get to review the copyedited ms., and several rounds of page proofs. Very tedious. And still, one or two things get through.
I suspect that many or most copyeditors use spellcheck and, unfortunately, grammar-checking software, judging from some of the very weird grammatical changes on my ms.
— LitProf May 2, 06:48 PM #
I am trying to remember the last time I read a book that was without stupid errors that would have been caught by spellcheck or a marginally competent editor, copyeditor or proofreader.
Princeton can stop resting on its reputation for intellectual superiority and recognize that there is no great writer without a great production staff. Authors who want perfect books need to learn to line edit, too.
In the end, wonderful and correct wriiting is produced by people who can recognize it without the assitance of a computer—and that includes writers, copyeditors AND editors.
— Ellen C. May 2, 07:16 PM #
As Sat Churmit-Dazhy (#14) points out, it can be very difficult to proofread one’s own prose, but in this case, it seems like the author may not have tried very hard. There are techniques for doing this that a responsible author must learn, and yes, as LitProf (#16) notes, one or two things (like copeditor!) still get through!
Even if we agree that the author must bear some responsiblity. that certainly does not excuse the publishers who have outsourced copyediting and proofreading and seem to have done away with manuscript editors altogether. There truly is no substitute for a responsible author and a good production team.
— Pamela May 2, 07:18 PM #
Freelance editors can get much better than minimum wage, though it’s true most aren’t making big bucks. See http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.html (which is some years old, I believe). To get $25 an hour on this job, depending on the word count and the density of the text, a proofreader would bid around $1500-$2500, adding a production expense of well under a dollar per book, even with such a short print run. There are still many publishers who find such an expense entirely worthwhile, I’m thankful to say.
Unfortunately, the production staff sometimes falls through and doesn’t get the corrections input completely. That happens less now that we have onscreen editing (where the production folks can go through and accept changes, rather than re-keying), but still certainly occurs. I have friends who proofread their scholarly works pretty carefully, if not quite to professional standards, and saw errors come through in the published work that they had marked for correction. It’s a good idea to keep a copy of the marked-up proofs, I’d say, in defense.
— Helen May 2, 07:36 PM #
The fees for copy-editing in the U.S. are deplorable. I make almost $50/hour freelancing for Canadian companies, and I know people who make much more. I had to give up a client (a prestigious academic press) in the U.S. because it just wasn’t worth my time.
— Julia May 2, 08:27 PM #
I am one of those supposedly lowly copyeditors who—for shame!—works from home and is paid per project. I actually make a fairly decent living, by the way. I also worked in-house at a press for several years, which is not an uncommon background for editorial freelancers to have. Yes, ninety errors is far too many. However, maybe there’s no need to make sweeping generalizations about the state of book publishing. The editorial process is lengthy and complicated and usually safeguards against the worst errors (although paradoxically, the process also sometimes allows new errors to creep in, and these are normally caught).
Copyeditors are sometimes new or just not terribly competent. (Many of them are excellent at what they do.) The proofreaders who read behind them are supposed to catch whatever goes wrong during the copyediting, author review, and integration of the author’s post-copyedit revisions. Yet most books go to press with a few errors in them.
It just sounds like somehow, in this case, things converged so that the normal layers of editorial work failed to address the problems. In my experience, this is a rare situation.
And no, the author is not to blame. The intellectual material is his, but the book as a product belongs to the press and is the press’s responsibility.
— A. Wesley May 2, 09:48 PM #
As an inexperienced assistant professor I published my first major book with a university press. I was thrilled that the book would come out before my tenure decision. But what an eye-opener! Three external reviews were solicited, which were helpful. But there was no copyediting, no proofreading, and they did not provide me with any proofs to review. I turned in electronic text and the photos, then, nothing back from them for two and a half years, and suddenly there was the book. With a few errors introduced by them in the illustration placement.
My most recent book I sent to a commercial academic publisher. They assigned a copy editor/proofreader, indexer, and designer, who all communicated with me regularly. I received proofs and corrected proofs to review. From the turning in of my manuscript to having the book in hand took a total of 7 months. I’ll never bother with a university press again.
— Christine May 3, 06:20 AM #
Aren’t authors typically given the opportunity to make one last run at a copy-edited manuscript? Maybe I’m living in a different world from some of the folks on this list, but I’ve never yet published an article or a book that I didn’t see after copy-editing, and before it was published. So how can this be the fault of a copy editor, no matter how inexperienced? It seems to me that unless there’s some very clear explanation for this — faulty software, perhaps, at the end of the day, this is the author’s responsibility.
— Clyde May 3, 10:27 AM #
Clyde, even when proofs are provided (which doesn’t always happen), the author’s corrections may never get incorporated into the final text.
It’s notoriously difficult to proofread one’s own work anyway, and authors are often lousy proofreaders even of other people’s stuff. Heck, I know of more than one famous writer who cannot spell at all, their imaginations being almost entirely pictorial and oral (which is what makes them such vivid storytellers).
— Helen May 3, 02:16 PM #
I’m Peter Moskos, the author of the recalled book, Cop in the Hood. I can clarify some of the points mentioned above.
I take ultimate responsibility for the errors. It’s my name on the cover. I’m very happy that Princeton University Press is willing to accept responsibility as well, because reprinting a book is a huge deal. In a month, hopefully this mess will all be over and the book will be better than ever (and I won’t have to apologize to people who read it for all the errors).
Certainly I tried to find errors… and failed (and my spelling does suck—embarrassingly so). And while I do think I’m pretty good at proofing other people’s writing, it’s nearly impossible to proof any writing if you already know what it is supposed to say. Even after some errors were pointed out to me with the specific line in the text marked, I still could not find about a quarter of the errors. The mind sees what it wants to see.
We’re still not sure if some corrections were marked but not made, or if they all slipped through. I suspect the latter, but I don’t know. And we may never know because apparently the proofs aren’t kept, which seems odd.
When the final “corrected” proofs left my hands, I remember thinking, “It sure would be nice to see the final clean version before it goes to press.” [“Clean,” of course, now being in ironic air quotes.] Somehow I figured it would all work out. I mean, a book is a team effort. And Princeton is a good press. Somebody is paid to copy edit and proofread. As this is my first book, perhaps I had too much faith in the system.
More of my thoughts can be found on my blog, www.copinthehood.com. For posts on the recall, click on the label: “recall of Cop in the Hood.” But really, I write about other things, too.
— Peter Moskos May 3, 05:49 PM #
As a book designer, I’ve seen the standards throughout publishing slip-sliding away for the last two decades. Such a debacle can’t be blamed on the author—it’s unequivocally the publisher’s responsibility. But all authors should be mindful and watch their backs, because publishing isn’t what it used to be.
— Cheryl May 3, 06:53 PM #
Disclosure: I am a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association (http://www.the-efa.org) and the Bay Area Editors Forum (http://www.editorsforum.org). I highly recommend that PUP’s Editing, Design and Production director and its Editorial Manuscripts Manager and Electronic Manuscripts Manager make it a PUP policy henceforth to hire freelancers who are members of those professional organizations, along with the American Society for Indexing and other editing-industry professional organizations—or distribute a list of said editing-industry organizations to their authors with a notice that the onus is on them to achieve editorial excellence in PUP publications. Many resources for professionals worldwide may be found at http://www.asindexing.org.
— Anita D. McClellan Associates May 4, 02:03 PM #
Yes, standards for copyediting have slipped—in books and journals. Years ago I decided that no one cared as much as I did about my stuff, and so I insisted on seeing it after copy-editing, and reviewed it carefully. Good copyeditors are wonderful, and I’ve learned a lot from them, but they can make mistakes, too. I try to see the copy again after my response to the copyeditor is corrected. I haven’t always been successful in either of these efforts, but they are worth trying for.
— Ken May 5, 07:14 AM #
I’ve published a lot of books and articles & reviewed & read many others. Yes, editing standards have slipped with outsourcing but some of the best editors I’ve worked with have been freelancers.
Two helpful tricks I’ve learned for proofing my own books: hide all lines but the one you are reading at the time to force your mind to look carefully only at those words and not ‘jump ahead’ (though that wouldn’t have helped Peter Moskos, evidently, given what he says above); or hire a student to read the text aloud to you from one copy while you check another (and switch roles when each gets tired). That gets another person involved, and reading aloud really helps you to see the errors. Sometimes I have sent in corrections that don’t get incorporated into the final version, and sometimes the copyeditor introduces errors at the last minute. There’s little to be done in such cases except to hope that the book does well enough that there’s a second printing and the errors can be corrected at that time.
— historian May 5, 08:47 AM #
This story strikes me as preposterous. I have published many books and the copy editors (in university presses and in commercial houses) have uniformly been shrewder and more helpful than anyone else in the publishing house. Surely the author received page proof. Unless Princeton is hiring ninnies, which I doubt, my guess is that the copy editor is being skapegoated here.
— Observer May 5, 08:55 AM #
Before entering academia, I worked as a graphic artist for a commercial printer. We received a lot of work from academic, medical and other professional associations and I was always amazed at some of the bloopers that slipped through despite the fact their documents had (presumably) undergone multiple reviews. Part of the problem is that the eyes and the mind are less likely to “flag” an error the writer or editor has made or has already seen but left uncorrected.
Typographical tragedies has existed as long as the printed word. Tip: To spot them more effectively in a manuscript you have already seen one or more times, when reviewing the proof of your ms. after receiving it from the publisher start from the END and read it backwards. You’re more likely to spot an error in spelling and grammar than you would by re-reading the same copy from front to back.
— Mina May 5, 09:29 AM #
One of my greatest surprises was getting my first subscription to the New York Times and discovering all the typos and poor grammar. It became so annoying that I cancelled the subscription and went back to reading the hometown newspaper which is edited near perfectly.
— first marci May 5, 11:18 AM #
Do the many “grammar errors” include any attempts to duplicate how Baltimore police officers and the people they serve actually speak? Were there quotations of this sort?
— John Shea May 5, 11:20 AM #
I am getting a vision of a blond, single-parent proofreader having to bare the wait of razing a two-headed child while allowing his computer to think four him.
— Michael Sartin May 5, 11:28 AM #
I think it is incredibly brave for the director of Princeton UP to admit that no one in his organization did a close read of the manuscript before it was accepted for publication and handed over to a “inexperienced copy editor.” Was the manuscript not vetted in peer review? Did not the acquiring editor read a chapter or so to identify potential problems in the book he/she acquired? It is a pity that Princeton stopped using professional proofreaders, who could have saved the press the embarrassment that this single, unnamed and shamed individual brought down on it.
— Leslie May 5, 11:42 AM #
I taught a small class for a public institution about a year or so ago and used a book on the Civil War from a small academic press that was riddled with typos and worse. When told of the problem, they said they would correct it and send new copies to me and any of my students who wanted one. I don’t think the new edition is out yet, or they’ve reneged on the deal. I’m not sure which.
— Steve May 5, 11:55 AM #
I fear this episode demonstrates decline of caring about everything intellectual. I suspect that a series of teachers assured this guy, “Don’t bother about spelling or grammar, it’s the thought that counts.”
— Paul R. Cooper May 5, 11:59 AM #
#32—I completely agree about your NYT comment. I was required to get a subscription for a course in undergrad and was shocked by the poor proofreading.
As a member of a college/university editors listserv, I’m continually impressed by the thoughtful deliberation most editors give to grammar, style, and fact-checking issues.
Several have already touched on the first rule of copy-editing: Never rely on proofreading your own copy!
— D May 5, 12:32 PM #
I just find it refreshing that the Princeton U. Press spokesman just came out and admitted that they blew it, rather than throw a bunch of excuses around.
That said, this is inexcusable for a reputable publisher.
— Tim May 5, 12:50 PM #
I was reading a book published by Princeton when this news item appeared. It didn’t surprise me, as I had been marking typos and grammatical errors while I read, some of which would have been flagged by any spelling or grammar checker (e.g. “thos” for “those”, “a fare amount” for “a fair amount”). To be honest, I usually find at least 3 errors per book these days, so they’re not alone. It’s just that the reader expects a university press to be particularly fastidious about such things.
— Midwest Prof May 5, 01:59 PM #
Many university presses no longer use proofreaders after the book is typeset because of the expense. The freelance copyeditor is often encouraged to edit in as few hours as possible to reduce the budget (and does not see the manuscript again once it is turned in), and the production editor may be working on 25-40 book projects at a time and is working at a constant breakneck pace. If we are to retain the quality university presses are known for, then we need to realize that copyediting and proofreading are not extras that we can abandon or shortchange. I once loved this profession, but I am ready to move on.
— editor May 6, 10:17 AM #
Spellcheck be damned—a good red pen would suffice.
— Gary Brooks May 6, 12:06 PM #
I also wonder if the copyeditor is being scapegoated. What occurred to me is that perhaps Princeton printed the uncorrected set of proofs by mistake. I’ve seen that almost happen.
— Z May 6, 01:40 PM #
Clearly, this manuscript arrived in terribly sloppy condition from the author. The more errors in the first round, the more errors in the printed book. Perhaps authors should take some responsibility for proofing their manuscripts, and actually reading the page proofs they’re sent during the production process.
— G Page-Fort May 6, 03:43 PM #
Proofreading is historically the responsibility of the typesetter. At Duke & Company we double proofread everything. I suspect Princeton had this book typeset offshore to save money. They got what they paid for.
— R. M. Weisman, Duke & Company May 6, 07:19 PM #
You get what you pay for.
I have been a professional copyeditor for 24 years. I gave up UPs for medical publishing because it pays better. And I am considering working now for overseas clients, for even better pay. Medical can be dry and tedious, but it pays better. The last UP I worked for paid $12.50 an hour—that’s barely minimum wage, when you deduct for SS and taxes. When I asked for a raise, I never heard from them again, not even a thank you for the years of service. Again, you get what you pay for. I think most professional copyeditors with experience will no longer work for such low wages as UPs pay.
— Julie Cleveland, twopalmseditorial.com May 7, 09:15 AM #
As an author and an editor, I can see the many ways that this particular situation (and others like it) went awry.This is an unfortunate situation indeed, but the onus falls not only on the copy editor in question, but on the author and on the publisher. As #9 wrote, the author should have seen blue lines, galleys something before it went to press. The copy editor (or in-house proofreader or auth.) should have had a chance to do a live-to-dead copy edit.
Production staff makes edits (and STETs) edits for various reasons, which the author should have had a chance to review.
Case-in-point, I just finished a mss w/a pub (book’s due out in fall) and found a couple of spots that were deleted in the galleys (prob b/c of space) that ended up making the next para make no sense. I returned the galleys w/a hard copy of the orig. text and an explanation of why the missing text needed to be returned to the copy. There were also spots where the page designer/type setter decided to “improve upon the flow” and consequently ended up creating split infinitives an other issues that as editors, we all know are big no-nos. (You know I had my red pen out and lots of sticky-notes.) And even with all of that…I still only saw one round of galleys.
Perhaps the author should have had a proofreader look at it before it went to the publisher; perhaps PUP should have been more concerned with making sure that the final printed word was as spectacular as the subject that they felt worthy of rushing to press. Perhaps authors (and our agents) should insist on being involved in all of the proofreading rounds before final press as part of their contracts. Hopefully, this is a cautionary tale for all of us in the publishing field.
— E.G. May 8, 12:07 AM #
As an indexer who works with many university presses, my eyes are the last to see the page proofs prior to publication. I’ve sent many lits of errors —both factual and typographical— to the editor or author of the book in process. In one case, there were so many errors that the press run had to be rescheduled but at least the published book did not contain errors that would have made both editor and author look silly. I’m surprised that the indexer didn’t catch the errors in the PUP book, if indeed it contained an index.
— L. Ashworth May 8, 12:16 AM #
First, thanks to the author for reading these comments and joining this discussion.
Comment number 27 recommends that the press should restrict its freelancer pool to people who belong to certain professional organizations. I have to point out that this practice would guarantee nothing. For all we know, the editorial freelancers who handled this project could be members of the EFA and the BAEF.
I currently belong to one of these organizations and used to belong to the other, and the only hurdles to achieving membership were to fill out an application and make payment.
I also know that many freelancers whose work I highly respect choose not to belong to the EFA because they perceive its benefits to be much greater for editors based in New York City than those who live elsewhere.
Furthermore, newbies can seek organizations such as these in an attempt to legitimize themselves if their experience and/or skills are lacking.
To sum up: Unless these organizations change their mission and practices and test the skills of prospective members—and I don’t think they should do that—the advice given has no merit whatsoever. In-house editors at Princeton U Press and elsewhere must do their own evaluations of prospective freelancers to ensure quality work.
— A. Wesley May 8, 12:39 AM #
Given the number of errors, I would suspect that an uncorrected file made its way to the printer. I work as an editor for a publishing house. We begin the process with electronic files containing the unedited manuscript, and then our edits are added to the file. Sounds like the wrong file was submitted.
— M. Stevens May 8, 11:59 AM #
By coincidence, I read a short review of this book in “The Atlantic” just hours after seeing the start of this discussion. The uncredited reviewer either did not see these typos or decided not to mention them in the positive review.
— Will Powers May 8, 12:36 PM #
Thanks for mentioning that, Will. I’d like to think that the book is strong enough that reviewers simply read past the mistakes. So far, all reviews have been favorable and no reviewer has mentioned the typos. It is a good book, if I do say so myself. Still, I’m happy it’s being corrected. Hopefully everybody interested in the recall will actually buy the book!
— Peter Moskos May 8, 03:55 PM #
What you want to hope for, Peter Moskos, is that people will search like crazy for the first printing, and then get the second printing also. Book collectors can be like that. Think of it as the bibliophilic equivalent of the Inverted Jenny postage stamp. More book sales for you.
— Will Powers May 8, 06:36 PM #
Princeton used to have a professional proofroom. They used to have a printing operation. They used to have staff copyeditors. Now they outsource copyediting to freelancers who take rudimentary test at best, and overwork their production people, who don’t have time to fine-comb a freelance copyeditor’s work. The author is supposed to proofread his own manuscript. If he were capable of doing that, then editors wouldn’t be needed. Ironically, I left PUPress for the financial sector. We produce marketing material that receive several rounds of editing and professional proofreading. It’s collateralized debt obligations that we have trouble with.
— Bob Brown May 10, 09:00 AM #
Ninety spelling and grammar errors in a book? Amateurs. Wesleyan UP can do that much per chapter and even get book titles wrong on their website! UP of Mississippi told me that they weren’t using copy-editors at all! Get with the program, Princeton!
— jbl May 11, 12:28 AM #
If you go to the Princeton University Press web site, you’ll see that they have only two people listed in its editorial/production staff. That’s simply astounding for a press of that size. They are heavyweight in the acquisitions and sadly underweight in managerial editing.
I actually feel badly for the people in editorial and production at Princeton — it must be an awful situation to be so dreadfully understaffed. Most acquisitions editors do not give much attention to grammar, style, and consistency, looking instead at the larger content and relevance of the work to the trade and field.
One managing (print) editor cannot manage a press of that size capably. Unless there is a whole office of additional support staff not listed on the web page, the blame for this case must land squarely at Peter Dougherty’s feet for failing to adequately staff his press.
— S. P. Mims May 12, 01:39 PM #
Everyone wants top-notch standards when something like this comes to light, but they don’t like the price a publisher must charge for a book to maintain such standards. And what sort of standards do these complainers maintain in their own writing? Oh, but publishers are supposed to be “professionals.” Well, publishers will ultimately reflect the values of the culture.
Those who look to the day whenl most books will be published for free on the Internet had better prepare for much worse than this!
— margaret May 12, 06:01 PM #