You know those weeks when you’re exhausted by Tuesday morning? The weeks when the best-laid plans don’t work out quite the way you’d hoped? The weeks when your work schedule is so packed you feel like your brain will melt? I think you know where I’m going. But in between the crazy schedule and the many mishaps, I learn a few lessons that are worth sharing.

1. Keep a shopping bag in your purse. I always forget one and so everything gets crammed in my purse, which ends up weighing a ton.
2. When frustrated by being jerked around, politely cut to the chase. Sometimes you’ll get lucky. (Also, get transfers at every bloody transit station you enter and exit from to avoid lectures from drivers.)
3. Expect the unexpected. I had lots of time before my train home … until my glasses broke. I got them repaired, but it cut into my schedule and I had to dash through the station to make my train.
4. When faced with a problem, KISS—Keep It Simple Stupid. I know, this is often applied to scenarios, but it’s a handy thing to remember when you’re faced with a problem. When you’re trying to organize work around train schedules, sometimes it’s just easier to delay travel.
5. Always keep a pair of undies and socks in your purse. Just because you’re not a daily news reporter doesn’t mean a day trip won’t turn into an overnight stay. (For the record, I did a little shopping.)

Being a copy editor and proofreader isn’t always just about missing commas, errant hyphens and using their right there (or their, or they’re). Sometimes my job turns into fact-checker — and sometimes that means digging up some unusual stuff.

This week I was proofreading an article when I started to wonder about the lack of comma in a historical quote. It’s the freedom of speech quote from George Washington’s Newburgh Address, which gets used a lot when people are talking about free speech.

The quote I was proofreading struck me as odd because, as anyone who’s spent time digging through archives knows, Revolution-era speeches are riddled with commas, semi-colons, ampersands and Biblical capitalization, and passive phrases are common. Not only was the quote I was looking at remarkably clear and in an active voice, it seemed to be missing a comma. As the potentially missing comma niggled, I remembered a scene in some novel where a character is talking about how people often misquote an important military figure. So I opened my browser and started searching for Washington’s quote.

I discovered a few things in the course of my search:

A PBS transcript of the Address was not the same as the quote in the article I was proofing. 

Another transcript on MountVernon.org was close to, but not the same as, both the PBS transcript and the quote in the article I was proofing — which made me wonder if all three were wrong. (And made me really worry, given that this transcript is part of a lesson plan for school kids — yikes!)

So I dug deeper, and I found something awesome: The Massachusetts Historical Society has images of the original and a transcript online. (I love archives!)

It turned out I was right. The original quote not only had more commas, but some of the wording was different and there were dashes, an ampersand and some unusual capitalization. Here’s the exact quote:

”[…] reason is of no use to us — the freedom of Speech may be taken away — and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.”

To be fair, I love this sort of work. Looking for and finding historical documents and finding unequivocal answers to questions is like striking gold (except for the being rich part). And it didn’t hurt that the managing editor was impressed that I’d found the original.

But this isn’t just a little story about the weird twists and turns you take as a copy-editor; there is plenty to be learned.

As a copy editor or proofreader, it’s really important to trust your gut. If you’re not sure about something, look it up. Don’t assume the handling editor or fact-checker had the same reservations. People miss things and make mistakes.

If you’re a writer and you want to use a quote in a story, make sure you find the original. The internet is riddled with websites dedicated to famous quotes, but quotes are often misquoted. Don’t take a non-original source at face value. Quote websites are great for finding thematic quotes for a story, but once you’ve found a quote you like, look up the original so that you can be sure you’re not repeating a misquote. 

If you’re a fact-checker, don’t accept a source that isn’t original (or as close to original as possible if the original is lost or destroyed). If a writer provides an inferior source, take the time to dig around and find the original — trust me, it’s worth it. And you never know what you’ll find…

tetw asked: Classic articles and essays from the world's best journalists and writers - http://tetw.tumblr.com

Thanks! Definitely worth checking out, for both writers and readers.

If you happen to watch any television episodes on Global TV’s website, you’ve probably seen the commercials for GlobalNews.ca. As annoying as it is to watch the same commercial over and over, what really bothered me was that a graphic resembling a screen capture featured a picture of Robert Pickton, a serial killer who murdered and dismembered women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

I understand the impetus behind highlighting that infamous picture; it was a huge story, one that continues to unfold with an inquiry into the handling of cases. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong. As I saw Pickton’s picture again and again, all I could think was, “Imagine how awful the victim’s families feel when they see this…” It seemed unnecessarily cruel and careless, and yet I never emailed anyone at Global to ask if they thought it was perhaps a poor choice for a self-promotional ad. I should have voiced my concerns. 

The good news is Global has redesigned their ad with different graphics; no more Pickton. I’m sure the change has more to do with highlighting the various ways you can access Global’s content than any sort of sensitivity to viewers, but I’m just glad to see that old graphic go.

While the problem has effectively been resolved, this is a good reminder for everyone in the media to think about how we package information. There are cases where publishing some details or images can do more harm than good; there are times when we need to make a decision to not publish something that could do irreparable harm. That’s on the reporting end of things. When it comes to self-promotion, I firmly believe there’s no need to use any material that could cause someone pain.

Unless you’re not on Twitter or live under a rock, you’ve probably heard it’s International Women’s Day — the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, in fact. It’s a day for celebrating the achievements of women. Some people choose to use the day to highlight the disparities for women, but I prefer the celebratory tone because, let’s face it, a lot of women do/have done some pretty fantastic things.

There are a lot of Canadian women I’ve looked up to over the years. Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian female astronaut to head to outer space, seemed so cool to my inner science geek when I was a kid. I adored Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby and Nellie McClung for fighting so that women could be legally recognized as persons. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s tales were among my favourite books. And Laura Secord saved the country from becoming part of the United States (something I’ve never been more grateful of). I could go on and on, and then there are the women from other countries around the world.

As a journalist, there are a lot of female writers who I admire greatly, including (but definitely not limited to) Susan Sontag, Chantel Hebert, Joan Didion, Peggy Orenstein, Susan Orlean, and Rachel Carson. These women’s words have been insightful, artful, haunting and even revolutionary. Case in point: Between 1958 and 1962, Carson penned Silent Spring, a book about the dangers of toxic pesticide DDT (it was first serialized in The New Yorker, beginning in June 1962). The story launched an environmental movement that culminated in a ban on DDT in the U.S. and many other countries. (Interestingly, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Carson pitched a story about the dangers of DDT to Reader’s Digest 13 years earlier, but they weren’t interested.)

This year, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression is celebrating International Women’s Day by highlighting the work of four international writers who produce journalism in spite of obst