1000+ is the new 500

In my freelance editing of articles for posting to the Internet, I've been getting slammed in recent days by articles way over the suggested word count. These articles read like treatises.

I return the articles to the writers and politely request a rewrite, and suggest that they review the appropriate style guide. What I feel like writing is RTFSG!

Writers: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

The gatekeepers have misplaced the keys.

One of editing's occupational challenges is to learn and apply any number of different style guides when moving from one employer to the next, depending on particular house style preferences. There's AP, GPO, and Chicago style guides, to name just a few.

Being responsible for riding herd on style is a process of learning, unlearning, relearning, etc.

Take that challenge and increase it by an order of magnitude, and you've got the nearly impossible juggling act that me and my fellow copy editors (for the freelance, online content editing I do) are responsible for.

We currently have no less than sixteen sets of guidelines. These comprise: eleven categories of articles (how to, about, fact sheet, etc.); two blacklists (competitor websites never to be cited); and the house, image, and references guidelines. Plus, we must absorb and apply whatever information and/or feedback that our roughly 400 peers receive from our various team leaders or glean from looking at other forums on our website in addition to our own for copy editors.

Many of our forum posts reflect the sheer frustration of trying to sort out an incredible amount of information.

I'm hard pressed to recall any time since '83 (when I started my editing career) that so much effort has gone into so few words (the articles are from about 150 to 400 words). Much of that effort involves just preparing to edit.

To borrow a phrase from William Wordsworth, "The style guides are too much with us."

Disjointedness: An Email Exchange

Bud – Trying to refresh my memory from what was discussed during our Team Development session at the Marriot, weren’t you supposed to update the style guide? Reason I ask is because we have new writers for the EDF proposal and they have asked me today to provide them a copy for reference. Just let me know where it is saved and I will take care of printing it. Thanks.
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Gloria [one of the two proposal coordinators in the Proposal Center],

I finished my work on it several weeks ago and turned it over to Ellen at that time so she could review the DTP section.

Also, I made some changes to the acronym section; I'll finalize the acronym section when Sue reviews the list I made of acronyms that never need to be spelled out. You might remember that was one of my action items coming out of our team building session with Bryn. I did that list immediately after that session, but as of a couple of weeks ago Sue had not yet looked at it.

An exercise in futility

My manager has asked me to review and update the style guide for the Proposal Center.

Despite the fact that the guide resides in the template folder for every proposal in our content management system, I have seen very little evidence in my year with the company that any writers refer to it. And there has been no message—in any form—from the center manager to staff or contract proposal writers encouraging them to review it and to incorporate our style into their writing.

I have sent a number of style-related missives to several people who are responsible for managing the writers. Not one of them has ever even acknowledged receipt of those mini-guides.

I am going to resent every minute (and there will be many hundreds of them) I spend on this exercise in total futility. This will be a labor of love hate.