Wednesday, January 20, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.
Travelodge Hotel & Convention Centre, Rotary Room, 1376 Carling Ave., Ottawa
Instructor: Moira White

This workshop is meant for both novice editors and those who want to improve their writing. You will learn basic techniques for improving text and the types of errors and difficulties typically found in everyday writing.

The instructor will introduce participants to some of the perennial problem topics that copy editors face. For example:

• Spelling: Determining capitalization and hyphenation; forming compounds; choosing American, British, or Canadian variants.
• Grammar: Ensuring subject–verb and pronoun–antecedent agreement; avoiding dangling or misplaced modifiers; maintaining parallel structure.
• Punctuation: Clarifying meaning; dealing with hyphen and dash difficulties; determining whether punctuation goes inside or outside quotation marks.
• Word usage: Sidestepping commonly misused words; avoiding noun strings; eliminating redundancies.

• Mechanics of style: Using or creating a style sheet to maintain consistency; dealing with abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms; knowing when to italicize.

This is a learn-by-doing seminar with many exercises to illustrate the content.

Moira Rayner White entered the work world as a social worker and later moved into social policy. In both professions, she found that her organizational skills, attention to detail, and love of words were pointing her in a new direction—the world of editing. Currently a freelance editor and writer with both public and private sector clients, she has a decade of experience editing print and electronic publications. Moira is past president of EAC.

Registration closes: January 13, 2010, at 4 p.m.

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Cancellation Waiting List
The branch maintains a seminar cancellation waiting list if a seminar is full. To add your name to the list for this seminar, please send your email address and seminar preference to the branch.