Blog Challenge #3: Reading speeds and editing
I'm not a fast reader. Even if the Staples eReader speed reading test stays I read faster than 60% of the nation, I just know I'm not a fast reader. Never have been and it has frustrated me in the past because friends would finish books hours (in some instances days) before I would and sometimes spoil the ending for me. In high school, I started "skimming" through texts I had to read just to avoid this and the bad habit stayed through college. Mind you, some of the reading material we had in college was boring as hell and skimming saved my sanity (and my eyesight) but it made it difficult and sometimes even more frustrating when someone would catch something I missed.
When I started working in the textbook publishing industry, one of my first jobs required me to do a Quality Control check (QC) on page elements. We were expressly told NOT to read text but to review the "look" of the page. Were there widows, orphans on the page? How many sentences started with the same word? How much white space was there between paragraphs? Were the headers equidistant and centered across the page as required? What about styling? Were there any "soft returns", manual line breaks or double spaces after periods? If so, we fixed those elements then sent the text back to copyedit to review for consistency, grammar, spelling and fact-checking.
Unfortunately, I had a real difficult time NOT reading the text and would catch misspellings, comma splices and poor sentence structure in the text then get verbally reprimanded for marking it up. I couldn't help it! I can't NOT read the text and if I see a wrong, I must right it! I MUST!
You can see why I got along with the editors and copy editors better than the production teams now, don't you? As time went by, I learned to QC without reading and just "skimmed" the text for anything that stood out in glaring detail. I became the nightmare of many restaurant waitress whose menus had typos and poor design. I would actually take out my green pen (red = editorial, blue = design, green = QC) and mark-up their paper menus. Now, I can't read anything without looking at the whole picture. If there are too many similar words together in a paragraph (or several sentences start the same way) I stop and mark it up on my eReader. Sad, I know but it's just a part of who I am now.
Source: Staples eReader Department
What about you? Do you read pretty fast? Do you skim the text when you read at a quicker pace?
When I started working in the textbook publishing industry, one of my first jobs required me to do a Quality Control check (QC) on page elements. We were expressly told NOT to read text but to review the "look" of the page. Were there widows, orphans on the page? How many sentences started with the same word? How much white space was there between paragraphs? Were the headers equidistant and centered across the page as required? What about styling? Were there any "soft returns", manual line breaks or double spaces after periods? If so, we fixed those elements then sent the text back to copyedit to review for consistency, grammar, spelling and fact-checking. Unfortunately, I had a real difficult time NOT reading the text and would catch misspellings, comma splices and poor sentence structure in the text then get verbally reprimanded for marking it up. I couldn't help it! I can't NOT read the text and if I see a wrong, I must right it! I MUST!
You can see why I got along with the editors and copy editors better than the production teams now, don't you? As time went by, I learned to QC without reading and just "skimmed" the text for anything that stood out in glaring detail. I became the nightmare of many restaurant waitress whose menus had typos and poor design. I would actually take out my green pen (red = editorial, blue = design, green = QC) and mark-up their paper menus. Now, I can't read anything without looking at the whole picture. If there are too many similar words together in a paragraph (or several sentences start the same way) I stop and mark it up on my eReader. Sad, I know but it's just a part of who I am now.
Source: Staples eReader Department
What about you? Do you read pretty fast? Do you skim the text when you read at a quicker pace?
I am also guilty of skimming. LOL! Especially when I've had one too many drinks of French roast coffee. You are also right about textbook reading. Sometimes technical reading can make my eyes want to pop out of my head. However, here's a helpful tip that you probably already know. Try to read aloud. It will slow you down, and it adds an immersion effect for those of us who are kinetic learners. :) I hope that helps!
ReplyDeleteRespectfully,
Joy Johnson
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JoyJohnson
Not sure why I didn't see my replies to this blog post so I apologize for the lateness of my reply.
DeleteMmmm french roast coffee... sorry but mind immediately turns to the sweet nectar of the gods. Hee!
I tell my kids to read aloud all of the time and savor the words they're reading. It's certainly helped me with skimming and I do it when reviewing manuscripts received. You catch so much more when you read aloud.
I am not a fast reader either, although I've been known to finish a good book pretty quickly... a certain naughty trilogy recently only took me one week to finish. But I also find that in order to really gather and understand what I read fully, I have to read it again. Sometimes my eyes are faster then my brain. This was a problem in high school when my teacher would ask me to read aloud. My ears would go hot and I would panic and sound like I was illiterate. It took me working as a preschool teacher and having a child of my own to read to, to get over that.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't skim, not too much at least. But I do find myself looking down the page if I see something that catches my eye, which would sometimes ruin the story (at that moment) for me. So I will tend to put my hand over what ever it is that is attracting my eye to stop of reading it!
Being a graphic artist, I completely relate to the QC part and HAVING to mark things up that are wrong. I find things in ads, newspapers and magazines that drive me insane! I want to call the place and tell them, "aren't you aware of the glaring error in your bus ad!"
It's amazing how much having a child of your own helps you improve on skills you thought were beyond your ability, huh? I had the same issue with cooking. LOL It wasn't until I had to start making healthy meals for my family that I realized I needed to cook and cook well. Before that, I could burn water! LOL
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