Querying – How to do it

A copyeditor is frequently required to address a query, criticism, or clarification to the author. Some questions are so important—they concern the entire manuscript or a significant portion—that the copyeditor must discuss them with the author before finishing the copyediting. In such circumstances, a phone call, fax, or e-mail is required. Other queries, comments, or explanations, on the other hand, are limited to a line or paragraph, or a page or small section of the work. These communications are known as queries and will be included with the copyedited manuscript when it is returned to the author for approval.

Good querying skills—knowing when to query (and when not to query) and how to query effectively—are just as vital for a copyeditor as a strong command of punctuation and grammar. If you ask too many questions, the author may grow annoyed by how long it takes to read and answer all your questions, comments, and explanations. If you query too infrequently, the author may not understand the problem you’re attempting to solve and may continue to use the error-ridden original text, or the author may miss a minor change in meaning that you inadvertently introduced, or the author may begin to suspect that you’ve taken over the manuscript without even a “may I?” If you ask a query that confuses or insults the author, you are unlikely to get the assistance you need to address the problem.

When to query: A query is not required for every modification in a text. Copyeditors do not question routine mechanical changes that are not susceptible to the author’s veto or re-revision; thus, you do not need to explain why you inserted or removed a piece of punctuation or lowercase a word that the author capitalized. You should, however, draw the author’s attention to any potentially contentious technical alterations and query any mechanical revisions that may influence the phrase’s meaning. Your author, for example, has written.

Length of Queries: Sometimes a simple question like, OK? You will need to write a lengthier comment explaining a recommended adjustment, suggesting that the author dairy a confusing sentence, and asking the author to select amongst various rewordings. The finest queries are brief yet respectful and pointed. When queries are too short or ambiguous (e.g., “Logic?”), authors may not comprehend the problem or feel reprimanded or snacked on. Whether you confuse the author’s thoughts or damage the author’s feelings, the outcomes will be counterproductive, and you will not receive the information you requested. When queries are excessively lengthy and convoluted, writers may complain about the demand on their time. You may expect the author to read the quay and answer in less than a minute but imagine what happens when author Jack tries to be conscientious in response to copyeditor Jill’s queries: Jack begins by reading (and sometimes rereading) the question. Then he examines the problematic section of the document. Even though Jar’s query is about a single sentence, Jack gets up and reads one or two pages before the problematic language and another paragraph or two after it. Nat begins to explore the merits of Jill’s inquiry. Is Jill accurate, or has she misinterpreted the tat or underestimated the audience? This query stimulates a reread of a page or two of the work and a reread of the query. If Jack finds that Jill’s criticism is valid, the time spent reaching that conclusion and rewriting the text will be considered well spent. However, if Jack thinks that Jill’s query is unimportant or extraneous, he will disapprove (or worse) at having had to go to such lengths to utter his initial phrase in good conscience.

Type of queries: Queries should never be sarcastic, nasty, or aggressive, and they should never have the tone of a schoolteacher scolding a rebellious pupil or a police officer questioning a suspect. Above all, your queries should not seem like you are questioning the author’s knowledge or intellectual abilities. Queries are not the place to make complaints or rebukes; instead, use them to pose an issue and seek the author’s assistance.

Technical documents are prioritized. Judith Tarutz recommends technical copyeditors address the following questions when constructing a list of priorities for triage in Technical Editing: The Practical Guide for Editors and Writers: What is essential to the readers? What types of mistakes are readers likely to notice and worry about? What is the document’s significance to the readers? What types of faults are simple to correct, given the time constraints? “Sometimes you’ll change something that’s not critical but is so easy to do that it’d be ridiculous not to,” Tarutz explains. And sometimes, you must ignore something that annoys you because it is acceptable to the consumers, is costly to alter, and is not vital to change.

PROCEDURES FOR QUERYING ON HARD COPY

A pencil-and-paper copyeditor should inquire with the editorial coordinator about the publisher’s preferred query method:

• If the margins are generous and the queries are brie&, the copyeditor can write bubble queries on the document. The benefit of this procedure is that the copyedited manuscript and any queries can be readily photocopied.
• Longer comments or questions can be written on the flap (also known as query slips or query – tags) – tiny, gummed paper slips attached to the text. The disadvantage of a marked document is that it takes longer to photocopy.
• Comments and queries can be written on self-adhering notes (sometimes known as post-its or ‘sticky notes?), although they tend to slip off in transit and make photocopying difficult. In the corner of these remarks, always mention the manuscript page number (and even the paragraph number). Comments and queries can be written on separate sheets of paper interleaved with the article or included in a cover letter to the author (keyed to the document by page number and paragraph). 

PROCEDURES FOR QUERYING ON-SCREEN

On-screen copyeditors have three & does for inserting their queries in the eaten display and copyedited file printout:

If the author is evaluating the copyediting on screen rather than on paper, you may embed the quay in the page using the comment or annotation features. You may utilize the footnote option to put your queries at the bottom of the page. If the text has numbered footnotes, you can designate the query footnotes with capital letters or nonalphabetical characters (e.g., asterisks) and reserve numbers for the author’s footnotes. It will help if you put your questions inside braces in the proper treatment. Using braces instead of parentheses or brackets, as the author may have done in the text, will allow you or another editor to look for and eliminate any queries during cleaning. You can make the queries boldface to bring the author’s attention to them. Between 1970 and 1984, gastroenteritis rates increased from 714.8 to 2,530.2. Clarify: 714.8 per 10,000? Per 100,0001, while TB rates more than doubled, from 14.8 to 48.8. Recheck your ph. 14.8 to 48.8 is more than triple. If it is not the same as for gastroenteritis, add per 10,00V or 103,00e. Although such embedded queries must be prominent, don’t go overboard with the typographical emphasis. For example, if you put your query in all capitals,

Again, a copyeditor should consult with the editorial coordinator to determine which strategy is chosen. In addition, certain publishers provide custom macros with an insert-query functionality to copy editors.