What: Editors BC professional development seminar
When: Saturday, January 25, 2020, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Where: Room 555, 5th floor, BCIT Downtown Campus, 555 Seymour Street, Vancouver | map
Cost for both seminars: $165 for Editors Canada members ($135 early bird), $230 for non-members ($200 early bird), and $100 for student affiliates. Advance registration required. Registration closes January 21; early-bird rates are in effect through January 13.

The Art of the Query (half-day) 10 am to 1 pm
Good querying skills are as important as any other copy editing function. Effective queries set the tone for a fruitful author-editor relationship and make the editing process more efficient. Poor querying can take a project off the rails.

In this half-day workshop, participants will review both effective and ineffective queries from actual manuscripts. They will have the opportunity to discuss process and procedure and practise their querying skills in short exercises.

Style Sheets with Substance (half-day) 2 pm to 5 pm
Style sheets set down the information writers and editors need about spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other mechanics to ensure a manuscript remains internally consistent and adheres to the standards of the publication. And no matter how detailed an organization’s own style guide, every document can benefit from having its own style sheet.

Using examples of style sheets for projects ranging from cookbooks to corporate publications, this workshop teaches how to prepare a style sheet that will save time, effort, and money for everyone in the production chain. You’ll learn what elements are necessary for a style sheet to be truly useful for editing and, just as important, what elements should be left out.

Ruth Wilson has more than 30 years’ experience as an editor, writer, and instructor. She worked for many years with Vancouver, BC, book publisher Self-Counsel Press, and since 1998 she has been a partner in West Coast Editorial Associates, offering a wide range of editorial and training services. Ruth is also a respected instructor, having taught many courses in editorial skills at SFU for more than 15 years. In 2011, she was honoured as a recipient of the President’s Award for Volunteer Service from the Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC), and in 2014, she was recognized as a Certified Professional Editor (Hon.) for the work she did in developing and launching EAC’s world-class Certification Program.