Why is poorly constructed text published?
April 30, 2011 7:27 AM Subscribe
NonFiction Filter: How come text in some published (non-fiction) texts is so poorly constructed? Why are bad examples not removed in the process of getting a book published? Is it down to cost, time, author's prerogative?
(I include an example inside)
For example on page 36 of the book (Action Research by McNiff) that I'm currently researching:
"My preferred metaphors are those in which technical, practical and emancipatory interests are enfolded, and unfold as evolutionary process within a holistic view of people in relation, a spiritual connectedness which enables us to recognise one another's humanity and work towards realising our own potentialities for humanity."
This strikes me as a shockingly bad sentence, that someone should have pulled up at some point. I'm still not entirely sure what the author was hoping to convey.
For example on page 36 of the book (Action Research by McNiff) that I'm currently researching:
"My preferred metaphors are those in which technical, practical and emancipatory interests are enfolded, and unfold as evolutionary process within a holistic view of people in relation, a spiritual connectedness which enables us to recognise one another's humanity and work towards realising our own potentialities for humanity."
This strikes me as a shockingly bad sentence, that someone should have pulled up at some point. I'm still not entirely sure what the author was hoping to convey.
Aren't nearly all academic texts written in jargon and thus, not subject to the rules of easily comprehended prose? I clicked on the link and the description of the book left me befuddled.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:59 AM on April 30, 2011
posted by Ideefixe at 7:59 AM on April 30, 2011
It sounds like you're reading something postmodern. In which case, it's like that on purpose.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:10 AM on April 30, 2011
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:10 AM on April 30, 2011
It's costs, all the way.
Not helpful is the tendency to let forty different people contribute to the text; in my experience it's rare in serious non-fiction to come across something truly written by just one person.
I've also found, at work, that people without an editorial bent simply don't care or understand how to avoid these problems; I accidentally became the person everyone sends contracts and legislation to for fixing because I do care, and they act like I'm a magician when I return things to them and they're easier to read. I've seen submissions to legal journals with the exact same problems; education level doesn't seem to come into play.
posted by SMPA at 8:10 AM on April 30, 2011 [2 favorites]
Not helpful is the tendency to let forty different people contribute to the text; in my experience it's rare in serious non-fiction to come across something truly written by just one person.
I've also found, at work, that people without an editorial bent simply don't care or understand how to avoid these problems; I accidentally became the person everyone sends contracts and legislation to for fixing because I do care, and they act like I'm a magician when I return things to them and they're easier to read. I've seen submissions to legal journals with the exact same problems; education level doesn't seem to come into play.
posted by SMPA at 8:10 AM on April 30, 2011 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: @ If only I had a penguin...
Please tell me you are being ironic!
posted by 92_elements at 8:23 AM on April 30, 2011
Please tell me you are being ironic!
posted by 92_elements at 8:23 AM on April 30, 2011
Best answer: I wrote a non-fiction book just this year, with a major trade publisher. As near as I can tell, every person I worked with was freelance or outsourced. I'm a fairly meticulous writer, so while I loved my editor [and she gave me lots of good advice for my second draft] she was only there to help me edit my manuscript and did not see the draft through the copyediting and layout and page proofing process.
I was handed off a production editor who dealt with image approval and then to an outsourced book design company who was in Chennai India and was timeshifted from me so that I could never have a direct conversation with them. They had very different ideas of how to do book layout which involved literally moving some of my paragraphs around within a chapter [I had said "put this text in a box" and this translated to them as "put this at the top or bottom of a page regardless of where it appears in the text"]. The production people also managed to give the wrong draft of my manuscript to the book layout people which we only caught once the page proofs were done and so with a lot of threatening emails and with them saying "any change at this point costs money so you can't make ANY changes that affect page layout" I made them fix it.
No one but me knew that the versions of book that were knocking around in the production process were wrong except me. And I'm a seriously uptight perfectionist person and I hope that I caught most of the errors but I know that I sent corrections off basically at the zero hour [things that were errors literally introduced in the layout process] and have no idea if they're going to be in the final copy. And I was treated like a pain in the ass most of the time for doing this.
So, my complaints aside my general observation is that other than the author, there is no other professional person in major publishing houses [esp for non-fiction] who really stewards books through to their completion. Non-fiction often involves topics that editors may not know enough about to correct texts at a sentence level and writers may be phoning it in or making small copies to their PhD theses in order to get published so they can gain tenure. The goals of non-fiction publishing are not always just to get an idea across and honestly, pulling one crappy sentence out of a book and saying "See!" sort of ignores the completely byzantine set of processes that go into getting a book in print in a major publisher nowadays.
posted by jessamyn at 8:40 AM on April 30, 2011 [10 favorites]
I was handed off a production editor who dealt with image approval and then to an outsourced book design company who was in Chennai India and was timeshifted from me so that I could never have a direct conversation with them. They had very different ideas of how to do book layout which involved literally moving some of my paragraphs around within a chapter [I had said "put this text in a box" and this translated to them as "put this at the top or bottom of a page regardless of where it appears in the text"]. The production people also managed to give the wrong draft of my manuscript to the book layout people which we only caught once the page proofs were done and so with a lot of threatening emails and with them saying "any change at this point costs money so you can't make ANY changes that affect page layout" I made them fix it.
No one but me knew that the versions of book that were knocking around in the production process were wrong except me. And I'm a seriously uptight perfectionist person and I hope that I caught most of the errors but I know that I sent corrections off basically at the zero hour [things that were errors literally introduced in the layout process] and have no idea if they're going to be in the final copy. And I was treated like a pain in the ass most of the time for doing this.
So, my complaints aside my general observation is that other than the author, there is no other professional person in major publishing houses [esp for non-fiction] who really stewards books through to their completion. Non-fiction often involves topics that editors may not know enough about to correct texts at a sentence level and writers may be phoning it in or making small copies to their PhD theses in order to get published so they can gain tenure. The goals of non-fiction publishing are not always just to get an idea across and honestly, pulling one crappy sentence out of a book and saying "See!" sort of ignores the completely byzantine set of processes that go into getting a book in print in a major publisher nowadays.
posted by jessamyn at 8:40 AM on April 30, 2011 [10 favorites]
A lot of nonfiction books are the life-long pet projects of the author. That doesn't answer the question as to bad sentence construction, but definitely is a reason why the overall flow of nonfiction books are so bad. If you've spent years collecting information, you want to include EVERYTHING, and would be reluctant to cut information that may not be especially relevant just to craft a better story.
posted by phunniemee at 8:51 AM on April 30, 2011
posted by phunniemee at 8:51 AM on April 30, 2011
Best answer: While slashed budgets have led too poorer editing of books nowadays, the example you gave seems too me an more of an example of the much older problem of obtuse academic writing, thus author's prerogative.
Back in the 90s the journal Philosophy and Literature used to hold an annual Bad Writing Contest, which gives examples far, far more impenetrable than the example you gave.
posted by bobo123 at 8:55 AM on April 30, 2011
Back in the 90s the journal Philosophy and Literature used to hold an annual Bad Writing Contest, which gives examples far, far more impenetrable than the example you gave.
posted by bobo123 at 8:55 AM on April 30, 2011
"Non-fiction often involves topics that editors may not know enough about to correct texts at a sentence level"
This is a key point – if the book is on a highly technical subject, it's often hard for an editor to deduce when something is using technical terms peculiar to the subject, and when something is gibberish.
An editor with plenty of time and nous might contact the author and ask for a brief clarification of that sentence. But if the author's uncommunicative, or there's a rush on, or it's one small thing in an otherwise well-written chapter, things get left with a shrug and the assumption that the author probably knows what (s)he's talking about.
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 9:36 AM on April 30, 2011 [2 favorites]
This is a key point – if the book is on a highly technical subject, it's often hard for an editor to deduce when something is using technical terms peculiar to the subject, and when something is gibberish.
An editor with plenty of time and nous might contact the author and ask for a brief clarification of that sentence. But if the author's uncommunicative, or there's a rush on, or it's one small thing in an otherwise well-written chapter, things get left with a shrug and the assumption that the author probably knows what (s)he's talking about.
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 9:36 AM on April 30, 2011 [2 favorites]
Sometimes copy-editors are not given access to the actual author, too. We might tell the contact at the publisher to ask the writer, but that might well not happen. Outsourced copy-editors are often very professional but sometimes that contact with the writer is so difficult to manage.
posted by LyzzyBee at 9:42 AM on April 30, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by LyzzyBee at 9:42 AM on April 30, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Costs, absolutely. I had to hire my own editor, as my (scholarly) publisher no longer does in-house editing at all. The only people called "editors" at this firm do acquisitons, and once the book has been accepted, any polishing is totally up to the author. I wanted my book to look good and read well, and I was able to afford it, so I hired a freelance editor. But I'm fussy. To other authors, the quality of the finished product doesn't matter so much, only "getting into print."
posted by philokalia at 11:23 AM on April 30, 2011
posted by philokalia at 11:23 AM on April 30, 2011
I'm still not entirely sure what the author was hoping to convey.
The cynic in me says "not much".
Alternatively, he might be trying to say something that if translated into standard English would be so self evident as to make him look foolish in saying it. (Which could also explain why he does not get back to lowly copy editors.)
I imagine that there's also a screw-the-customer ethos at work, same as in popular work. "Sure it's crap but the punters will pay, so who the hell cares?"
posted by IndigoJones at 11:39 AM on April 30, 2011
The cynic in me says "not much".
Alternatively, he might be trying to say something that if translated into standard English would be so self evident as to make him look foolish in saying it. (Which could also explain why he does not get back to lowly copy editors.)
I imagine that there's also a screw-the-customer ethos at work, same as in popular work. "Sure it's crap but the punters will pay, so who the hell cares?"
posted by IndigoJones at 11:39 AM on April 30, 2011
Best answer: In a nutshell: editing is being outsourced, as cheaply as possible, all over the industry. Publishers are getting what they're paying for, which is increasingly not much. (Speaking as one of the few editors I know with a full-time job anymore.)
posted by scody at 1:11 PM on April 30, 2011
posted by scody at 1:11 PM on April 30, 2011
I'm going to say that nobody knows how to write anymore. Students are taught to fill until the page/word count requirement is met, and online writing has no artificial constraints. Authors can vomit forth for pages on end, for no good reason.
posted by gjc at 7:32 PM on April 30, 2011
posted by gjc at 7:32 PM on April 30, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks for the responses.
I had no idea of the nature of how the editing process worked. Now I do.
It's a shame because of the amount of effort it must take to get a book, written printed, published etc. Naively I had always assumed conveying the meaning was the main purpose of a book.
And bobo123:
Back in the 90s the journal Philosophy and Literature used to hold an annual Bad Writing Contest, which gives examples far, far more impenetrable than the example you gave.
Those examples are simply stunning.
posted by 92_elements at 5:29 AM on May 1, 2011
I had no idea of the nature of how the editing process worked. Now I do.
It's a shame because of the amount of effort it must take to get a book, written printed, published etc. Naively I had always assumed conveying the meaning was the main purpose of a book.
And bobo123:
Back in the 90s the journal Philosophy and Literature used to hold an annual Bad Writing Contest, which gives examples far, far more impenetrable than the example you gave.
Those examples are simply stunning.
posted by 92_elements at 5:29 AM on May 1, 2011
Pro tip. Any sentence with the word 'holistic' in it is going to be meaningless bollocks, as the rest of that sentence goes on to prove in no uncertain manner.
On the wider point, there's no automatic correlation between subject expertise and the ability to write clear and precise prose. In an ideal world a skilled editor would help a credentialed author turn his knowledge into a comprehensible book but, as mentioned, this takes a lot of time and hard pressed publishing companies are paring costs and personnel to the bone. Though the most egregious post modernist drivel is in decline in most universities, all too many branches of academia and business still embrace suffocating obfuscation and students learn quickly how to play the game. There's about as much meaning in some of the first draft manuscripts I've been saddled with as in the collected speeches of Kim Jong-il or David Beckham.
I know only the best stuff survives over the centuries, but I've read some incredibly eloquent and beautifully phrased letters and journals by farm hands, sea captains and soldiers which would put even modern literary authors to shame. Editing on a computer makes life a lot easier, but writing with a quill makes you mull over every word. Most of the time, no matter how august the writer in their field, I'm reminded of Truman Capote's quip at Kerouac's expense - "That's not writing, it's typing."
posted by joannemullen at 5:54 AM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]
On the wider point, there's no automatic correlation between subject expertise and the ability to write clear and precise prose. In an ideal world a skilled editor would help a credentialed author turn his knowledge into a comprehensible book but, as mentioned, this takes a lot of time and hard pressed publishing companies are paring costs and personnel to the bone. Though the most egregious post modernist drivel is in decline in most universities, all too many branches of academia and business still embrace suffocating obfuscation and students learn quickly how to play the game. There's about as much meaning in some of the first draft manuscripts I've been saddled with as in the collected speeches of Kim Jong-il or David Beckham.
I know only the best stuff survives over the centuries, but I've read some incredibly eloquent and beautifully phrased letters and journals by farm hands, sea captains and soldiers which would put even modern literary authors to shame. Editing on a computer makes life a lot easier, but writing with a quill makes you mull over every word. Most of the time, no matter how august the writer in their field, I'm reminded of Truman Capote's quip at Kerouac's expense - "That's not writing, it's typing."
posted by joannemullen at 5:54 AM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: HAHAHAHAHAHA.
I knew it. Even before I clicked on it. What do you expect from a UK publisher?
Sorry, let me clarify, since before I started working in publishing, I too wasn't aware that British editors just don't edit. They don't. They take the month of August off and socialize after 5 pm. Which is sort of what the glory days of publishing were like (or so us youngsters are told by the white-haired folks in our offices who cluck at our bad fortune). We just assume that things are more cultured over there. And in some ways they are. But when it comes to editing books, hands down, American editors do more.
For instance, our company often co-publishes books with UK companies, meaning we publish them both at the same time. Because we share a common language, it's pointless to have both sides perform the same copy-editing and designing of the pages. So it's rock-paper-scissors (or some other complicated formula) to decide who wants to perform those tasks and who will pay a percentage of the fees. But when it comes to editing, ah, now that's when it gets interesting. A British author inevitably has a local editor who acquired the book and feels a sense of ownership. Thus, they'll "edit" the book first, that is spot a few rough sentences ("you meant lay, not lie!") and phone it in to us. We'll receive the thing, and faint at what they consider publishable. We then take on the task of actually editing it. If it's a big four hundred page book of serious non-fiction, maybe even two of us will tackle it, one reading ahead solving structural issues, and one reading behind to do the line-editing and sentence by sentence language stuff.
And I'm sure the cost-cutting in publishing, both in America and elsewhere, certainly hurts editing, but among the folks I work with, meticulous editing is still the standard. That is, arranging hour-long chats to go over chapters with authors, moving paragraphs around, telling authors to write new passages, asking them to clarify and justify positions. Two, or three, or six drafts of scans before we're satisfied with a troublesome section. I and the editors I work with do edit. I swear. Perhaps in other genres less concerned with rigor in language, it's more noticeable. But I'd just like to defend editors here, folks who unfortunately often get shatted on these days by readers and depicted as mindless drones who say "yes, sir" when our corporate overloads tell us to screw editing and go find them blockbusters.
Trust me, we are damned proud of doing actual editing.
Academic publishing is a whole different beast though. Acquiring editors just don't have the technical knowledge to actual edit it at the sentence-by-sentence level that you're expecting here. If it's a trade book, yes, an editor is representing a reader that includes them, so they feel free to make changes. But when the readership is other academics, the onus is more on the author to not be a terrible writer or to at least have peers who can assist.
So anyway, back to UK: they don't edit. Or at least the ones I've been fortunate enough to work with. Lovely people and super smart, but moving words around appears to them to be like worrying about the plumbing. It's as if its beneath them to do (they let the copyeditors handle it, which, for the most part, isn't bad if they have good copyeditors and the book is structurally sound. But if not? The best copyeditor in the world isn't going to solve that.) Oh, just to make sure everyone's clear: NOT UK-IST. Just peeved on behalf of my fellow editors who have ended up with the brunt of the work and only partial credit as "the editor" of a book.
/rant
posted by jng at 12:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]
I knew it. Even before I clicked on it. What do you expect from a UK publisher?
Sorry, let me clarify, since before I started working in publishing, I too wasn't aware that British editors just don't edit. They don't. They take the month of August off and socialize after 5 pm. Which is sort of what the glory days of publishing were like (or so us youngsters are told by the white-haired folks in our offices who cluck at our bad fortune). We just assume that things are more cultured over there. And in some ways they are. But when it comes to editing books, hands down, American editors do more.
For instance, our company often co-publishes books with UK companies, meaning we publish them both at the same time. Because we share a common language, it's pointless to have both sides perform the same copy-editing and designing of the pages. So it's rock-paper-scissors (or some other complicated formula) to decide who wants to perform those tasks and who will pay a percentage of the fees. But when it comes to editing, ah, now that's when it gets interesting. A British author inevitably has a local editor who acquired the book and feels a sense of ownership. Thus, they'll "edit" the book first, that is spot a few rough sentences ("you meant lay, not lie!") and phone it in to us. We'll receive the thing, and faint at what they consider publishable. We then take on the task of actually editing it. If it's a big four hundred page book of serious non-fiction, maybe even two of us will tackle it, one reading ahead solving structural issues, and one reading behind to do the line-editing and sentence by sentence language stuff.
And I'm sure the cost-cutting in publishing, both in America and elsewhere, certainly hurts editing, but among the folks I work with, meticulous editing is still the standard. That is, arranging hour-long chats to go over chapters with authors, moving paragraphs around, telling authors to write new passages, asking them to clarify and justify positions. Two, or three, or six drafts of scans before we're satisfied with a troublesome section. I and the editors I work with do edit. I swear. Perhaps in other genres less concerned with rigor in language, it's more noticeable. But I'd just like to defend editors here, folks who unfortunately often get shatted on these days by readers and depicted as mindless drones who say "yes, sir" when our corporate overloads tell us to screw editing and go find them blockbusters.
Trust me, we are damned proud of doing actual editing.
Academic publishing is a whole different beast though. Acquiring editors just don't have the technical knowledge to actual edit it at the sentence-by-sentence level that you're expecting here. If it's a trade book, yes, an editor is representing a reader that includes them, so they feel free to make changes. But when the readership is other academics, the onus is more on the author to not be a terrible writer or to at least have peers who can assist.
So anyway, back to UK: they don't edit. Or at least the ones I've been fortunate enough to work with. Lovely people and super smart, but moving words around appears to them to be like worrying about the plumbing. It's as if its beneath them to do (they let the copyeditors handle it, which, for the most part, isn't bad if they have good copyeditors and the book is structurally sound. But if not? The best copyeditor in the world isn't going to solve that.) Oh, just to make sure everyone's clear: NOT UK-IST. Just peeved on behalf of my fellow editors who have ended up with the brunt of the work and only partial credit as "the editor" of a book.
/rant
posted by jng at 12:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Just want to say a big thank you to those of you (in publishing) who care about the finished text. It makes a huge difference to the joy of reading, even non-fiction books.
Trust me, we are damned proud of doing actual editing.
You should be, I can only begin to imagine how hard it is to do well.
Fight the good fight.
Finding this thread really enlightening.
posted by 92_elements at 3:06 PM on May 1, 2011
Trust me, we are damned proud of doing actual editing.
You should be, I can only begin to imagine how hard it is to do well.
Fight the good fight.
Finding this thread really enlightening.
posted by 92_elements at 3:06 PM on May 1, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Victorvacendak at 7:37 AM on April 30, 2011