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Proof-Reading A Series of Essays for Readers and Their Employers, and for Authors and Editors
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The Proof-room
Though commonly acknowledged theoretically, the relative importance of good proof-reading is often practically unrecognized. Doubtless few of those who employ readers will assent to this averment, and the reason for their non-assent is also the basis of the assertion. Usually the proof-room is under the authority of a general foreman or superintendent, often not a good proof-reader himself, and who must necessarily devote most of his time to other matters. If the foreman is really competent to read proof, he will manage to secure and keep a force of good readers with less trouble than those have who are not so well fitted to judge the work done.
When good work is to be done--and where is the man who avowedly does not desire good work?--accomplished workmen are required, not properly in any one department alone, but all through; and perhaps this fact is partly responsible for the notion, not uncommon, but erroneous and costly, that almost any intelligent person can read proof.
Few persons realize fully the accomplishment and acuteness of perception necessary for the best proof-reading. He is the best reader who, in addition to mechanical experience and accuracy, has a comprehensive education and can apply it practically. Of course, we can not expect our reader to know absolutely everything, but he should at least know enough to suspect error when there is evident occasion for suspicion, and challenge it for the author’s attention when that is possible. He should have general information sufficient to enable him to correct absolute error when he can not refer the matter to author or editor--a contingency frequently arising in newspaper-work.
Above all, the thoroughly accomplished proof-reader will know enough not to make changes in what is written when he has no right to do so. He will often know that what is written can not be right, and yet will have sense enough not to alter it without authorization. He will also have sense enough to assume a certain amount of authority on proper occasion, as in the case of an evident slip in the copy of work that has a set form. A good example is work like the definitions of verbs in the “Century Dictionary.” In these definitions the word to is used only with the first clause. The good proof-reader will have the word omitted even if it does happen to be in the copy, notwithstanding the strictest orders to follow copy; in fact, this is so plain a case that a very good compositor even would not set the word in the wrong place. Another forcible instance comes to hand at the moment of writing, in a letter written by a New York proof-reader, who mentions Assemblyman Amos J. Cummings. Mr. Cummings never was an Assemblyman. He is a Congressman, and Chairman of one of the important Congress committees; moreover, he is an old-time New York compositor. When he was an editor on a New York paper another present Congressman was reporting Brooklyn news for the same paper. Almost every Brooklyn item sent in at that time had, in the writing, parallel streets reported as crossing, or cross-streets as being parallel; and these errors were frequently corrected in the proof-room.
The proof-reader who can and does make such corrections is much better for such work than one who merely catches typographical errors, even if he sometimes allows a wrong letter to pass in reading. Certainly a New York reader, especially a union man, should know better than to write of Assemblyman Cummings; and it would be well for all proof-readers to be sufficiently up in current affairs to correct the error, though it would not be fair to insist upon such correction as part of the reader’s qualification.
The present difficulty will never cease until the money value of good proof-reading is better recognized than it ever has been. At least one union in this country has always made a maximum weekly scale, and insisted upon classing readers with all other hands, at the same wages. Employers should insist upon paying as much over the union scale as they choose, and will always find it conducive to their interest to pay liberally for proof-reading and demand first-class work.
If any one is fortunate enough to have a first-class proof-reader in his employ, he will be foolish to let that reader go, if money--within reasonable bounds--will keep him. Fifty men may try to fill the place and fail before another really competent man is found.
A large proof-room should have its own foreman--not merely a head reader, but one actually in authority, just as any foreman should be, and with higher pay than the other readers have, and also with the chief responsibility. The room must, of course, be subject to the general foreman with regard to many details, whether it has a separate foreman or not; but, whoever is in charge, the readers should not be too much restricted in small, formal matters. An extreme instance that will illustrate practically what is meant by this arose through strict orders not to change anything from copy, too literally obeyed. A letter was missing from a word always spelled the one way, and the reader queried its insertion. He was an ordinarily good reader, too, who certainly had not the natural habit of doing anything stupid.
Undoubtedly better work will be turned out where there is no possibility of such queries being made, for the necessity of making them, under orders, imposes upon the reader an unfair burden of useless watchfulness that inevitably rivets his attention where it is not needed, and draws it away from matters that demand the utmost care.
Some Practical Criticism for Proof-readers
A periodical highly esteemed in literary circles, in reviewing a book, said: “The proof-reading is so bad that we infer that its author could not have seen the proofs.” The publishers of the book do their own printing, and probably think their proof-reading is as good as possible, though they may realize that it is not as good as it should be. Many employers have had trying experiences in their efforts to secure good proof-readers, and such experience may have operated in favor of poor workmen, through sheer discouragement of their employers.
An inference that “its author could not have seen the proofs,” while possibly natural, is hasty; for, while many authors examine their proofs carefully, and are reasonably quick to perceive and correct errors, most authors are not good proof-readers.
Errors in print were quite as common as they now are when “following copy” was common, as it was in New York, for instance, about thirty years ago. One of the best offices in which a man could set type was Alvord’s, flourishing at the time mentioned. In it the compositor measured for his bill absolutely everything for which a customer paid, be it a cut, a blank page, or anything else. There, likewise, he was seldom called upon to change a letter or a point except to make it like his copy. Certain large offices in New York now are like Alvord’s only in the fact that their proof-reading is not good--and the authors see most of the proofs. In one important matter these offices are utterly unlike Alvord’s--no compositor can earn decent wages in them.
Employers are largely responsible for the common poorness of our proof-reading, because they have not recognized the real nature of the work, and have insisted upon classing it as mechanical. Proof-reading will never be what it should be until the proof-reader ranks with the editor both in importance and in pay. With no more pay than that of the good compositor, and sometimes with less than the first-class compositor’s pay, the proof-reader’s position will not be adequately filled. Properly qualified proof-readers seldom remain long at the reading-desk, because they can and will do better elsewhere.
Something should be done to keep the best readers as such, for they are all climbing up into other fields of labor where they find stronger inducements, both in credit and in pay. Even in the case of our large dictionaries and encyclopædias, almost every one of which is decidedly bettered by the work of some one special proof-reader, there is little acknowledgment of the fact, and so there is little encouragement for the proof-reader to remain a proof-reader.
No one is surely fit to be trusted with proof-reading on particular work without having learned by practical experience. The best proof-readers must have as a foundation a natural aptitude, and they should have at least a good common education; but even these are not sufficient without practical training. One of the poorest compositors on a New York morning paper was very helpful in the proof-room occasionally, while some of the best compositors were not so good at reading. It is undeniable that printers themselves make the best proof-readers when to their technical knowledge they add scholarship.
A first-class compositor is worthy of special favor, and generally gets it. A maker-up or a stone-hand who works well and quickly, or sometimes even one who does excellent work without great speed, is a treasure. Compositor, maker-up, and stone-hand, however, all do work that must be examined and corrected by the reader; and of course that reader is best who can also do any or all of the other work. What is said of the reader’s qualifications is not altogether theoretical; it is all in line with the practical needs of every good proof-room, and every employer wants a good proof-room.
The correction of the evil, which is certainly a desideratum, may be secured eventually in one way, and that way is the one necessary for authors as well as proof-readers. We need improved methods of general education. We need more general training and development of the thinking power. Seldom indeed do even our greatest thinkers reason sufficiently. No amount of argument could prove this assertion beyond question, but some examples will serve a good purpose as an object-lesson.
One of our most prominent philologists, a man of great learning, addressed a meeting of scholars, speaking strongly in favor of what he calls “reformed” spelling--which would be re-formed indeed, but is not yet proved to be entitled to the epithet “reformed.” Here is one of his assertions: “One-sixth of the letters on a common printed page are silent or misleading. Complete simplification would save one-sixth of the cost of books.” Of course, he must have meant the cost of printing. Even with one-sixth less work in printing, very nearly the old cost of binding would remain, if not all of it; and any sort of good binding is no small item in the cost of a book. But one-sixth of the space occupied by the print would seldom be saved by the omission of one-sixth of the letters. The magazine article containing the report of the address is printed with the proposed new spelling. There is not a line in it that shows omission of one-sixth of the letters now commonly used in its words. One line in a paragraph of seven lines has “batl” for “battle,” and if the two missing letters had been inserted the word “the” might have been driven over into the next line; but the total effect on the paragraph of all possible changes would have been nothing--the same number of lines would be necessary for it. Certainly the assertion that one-sixth would be saved was not sufficiently thoughtful.
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