To start, I must first note that all work-related posts come with the following disclaimer: my company’s clients and the client’s research are confidential, so identifying details are changed accordingly.

In today’s post, I will write a little bit about my job and what it entails, as well as discuss a few grammar points — because my days are consumed by grammar points and I feel compelled to share!

Native Speaker vs. Professional Editor

For many jobs in Japan, a pulse and native English ability are the key prerequisites. For my job as a scientific editor, naturally, a science background is also required.

When I applied for my job, I satisfied the above-mentioned criteria, but had no experience as an editor. So, my first six months on the job included rather rigorous training: my boss looked over every one of my jobs and provided me with extremely thorough feedback. Any native speaker checking a document is able to check for grammatical errors such as subject-verb agreement and spelling, but a critical element that separates native speakers from professional editors is consistency.

A prototypical example is the serial comma, which is generally used in American English but often omitted in British English and technical writing: both “A, B, and C” and “A, B and C” are grammatically correct. One of the most difficult — and for lack of a better word, unnatural — parts of my job is having to recognize that “A, B, and C” is used on page 3, while “A, B and C” is used on page 17.  A similar example is checking the citation of references, for example, having to notice that on page 5, [1] the reference is given after the comma, but on page 14 [2], the reference is given before the comma. One last example is ensuring the consistent use of terminology. If an author primarily uses the phrase “electronic device” and only once uses “electrical device”, the terms must be revised for consistency.

Because  individually these examples are not strictly incorrect, they would most likely escape the notice of a non-professional native speaker; in contrast, a professional editor with a well-developed sense of anal retentiveness can be expected to make the necessary revisions.

Redundant Redundancy Repeating Unnecessary Words That Are Not Needed

One of the more amusing parts of my job is spotting grammatically correct yet redundant phrasing that can be written more concisely.

…in the next fifty years of this century… (in the next fifty years)

…the laser beam perpendicular to the normal of the surface… (the laser beam parallel to the surface)

…temperature increases linearly with a constant slope… (temperature increases linearly)

One of my New Favorite Words

Thereby – adv., by that means

Before becoming an editor, I never once used the word thereby, but it really is useful for cutting out superfluous words and writing in a clear, direct style.

We dissected the frog, and by do so, were able to examine its internal organs.

That sentence isn’t bad, but toss in a little thereby and bam!

We dissected the frog and thereby were able to examine its internal organs.

How was that?　 いかがでしたか？

Yesterday was crazy busy at work. I don’t fully understand the seasonal ups and downs of the scientific editing business, but right now, we are swamped. I really need to speed up my editing, but of course the trick is to do that while maintaining accuracy.

Yesterday, I worked from 9:30 am to 9:30 pm, bookended by an hour on the train each way — on thanksgiving. Lucky me (but Monday was a holiday, so I can’t complain too much).

It’s little late, but I wonder if there is somewhere in this country where I can score some pumpkin pie?

The new job is going well. I’m learning a lot of nifty little editing tricks, useful phrases, and whatnot. Here are some of the things that I’ve picked up or that maybe I knew, but have had beaten into my brain since starting full time.

1) useful phrases:

“in regards to” — great for when you can’t chose the right preposistion or the relationship between something is vague.
“as a result” — Great for smoothing over akward transitions or to spice it up when the author has used “thus” and “therefore” fifty times.
“as well as” — sometimes “and” just doesn’t cut it. Especially for lists of multiple items (We had “peanut butter and jelly as well as cheese and crackers.”
“in the present work” — If they are talking about an old paper and then start discussing to the current one, “this paper” is ambiguous.

2) Consistency. There are many small details that authors will be inconsistent on. For most of these, there are more than one acceptable way to do things, but you have to pick one and do it uniformly.

“Figure” or “Fig.” / “Equation” or “Eq.”
References before or after punctuation — Sometimes they do it before the period (1). Sometimes they do it after. (2)
Spelling out numbers. We tested thirteen subjects. Of these subjects, 11 experienced side effects of the medication
Serial commas. A, B, and C. or D, E and F
Capitalization of headings and subheadings “2. Material and Methods 3.1 Synthesis of the polymer” vs. “3. Results and discussion 3.1 Physical Characteristics of the Polymer”

3) Verb tense is a bitch. This varies a bit by field. Physics and medicine use some pretty unnatural present tenses sometimes, whereas chemistry and biology are more likely to use the past tense for experimental actions, but results and physical properties are often still present. Authors usually mix the tenses up good and crazy, and it can be a headache to sort out.
“In this study, we examined the insects and thus concluded that this species only ate leaves.”
“In this study, we examined the insects and thus concluded that this species only eats leaves.”
“In this study, we examined the animal and thus conclude that this species only eats leaves.”
“In this study, we examine the insects and thus conclude that this species only eats leaves.”

Oh! The trials and tribulations of an office worker!

Yesterday, I bought a new purse manbag. On the train, I like to take various things to keep myself entertained — my ipod, my Nintendo DS, my cell phone, and a book. But the book was a pain because it didn’t fit in my pocket, so I had to hold it. And because of all the other stuff along with my keys and wallet, my pockets were bulging. Hopefully with the manbag, I can keep my stuff little more organized and carry everything a little more comfortably, while looking only slightly womanly.

Also, for the commute, I need to get some better stuff on my ipod. How can I have 20 GB of music and still think to myself “bleh, I can’t find anything to listen to!”. Post music recommendations in the comments!

Today was my first day at Small Scientific Editing Company.

It went pretty well, though it was super busy. I spent most of the day working on a math paper, which was fairly rough going since I’m not great at math. Lots of the terms and stuff were things about which I had a vague recollection, so I understood the gist of the paper, but at the same time, I don’t have a working knowledge of the math or a grasp of the details. So I corrected the English and battled with the technical jargon as best I could.

Then in the afternoon, I did a physical chemistry paper. I’m also not great at Pchem, but after doing math, it was a welcome relief. And I guess it wasn’t a hardcore physical chemistry paper — it was more material science, which I can do fairly well. The main problem was that I was really rushed to finished the paper, so I just did one pass through, so I probabably missed some stuff. But someone else will read it before it gets sent out, so hopefully they will tidy it up a bit more. I ended up working until 8pm. Fortunately, my company isn’t a typical Japanese company that demands unpaid and pointless overtime as an expected part of the job. We only have to work overtime if we actually have stuff to do, and we get paid for it.

Doing the freelance work, I found that each pass through the paper yields diminishing returns. A 20 page paper might take about 4 hours to do a first edit during which I’d catch about 95% of the mistakes. A second close reading might take 40 minutes to get another 4%. Then a third reading, is basically reading normal speed and correcting the last 1%, which is (hopefully) just nitpicking small bits of style as opposed to grammar or spelling errors.

I’ll greatly improve my efficiency if I can up the percentage of errors I catch on the first pass to say 97 or 98%. Then I could do one more quick pass and be done, and not have to worry that I am leaving tons of mistakes for the final proof by one of the senior editors (which should be really quick).

Today was also my first day dealing with the commute to Tokyo. The trains are pretty crowded, but I think if I get to the station at a good time, I’ll be able to sit on the TX. After that, I take the Hibiya line, on which I am probably going to have to get used to standing since it always seems to be crowded.

 I remember I used to be able to pull all-nighters and still be functional the next day.  I guess I’m getting old.