I actually was for a time a lawyer in a large law firm, as I mentioned. We didn’t have proofreaders.
If things have changed so much since then, then I would expect to have learned about it. The kinds of interactions I have with lawyers would, in fact, lead me to expect that I would hear about it if they were using proofreaders.
I wonder whether this might be applicable to certain sectors of the legal industry, say, very large law firms, or New York firms, or maybe it’s just around here they aren’t common.
Did you mention it? I missed that, sorry. I saw you talking about interactions with lawyers, and I did see something about being in practice. I didn’t assume that meant as a lawyer.
I don’t know how much things have changed since then (or even when “then” was). I’ve been working in law firms (in New York) for about fifteen years.
It certainly only applies to large law firms in big cities, as far as I know. I don’t think I’ve seen proofreaders, at least not on staff, at firms with less than four or five hundred lawyers. A smaller firm might call in a freelancer when the need arises, but they’re less likely to have a proofreader on staff.
And even then, there aren’t many proofreaders these days, as I said in my first post. We’ve got two to a shift for a 2,000-lawyer firm.
There’s a broad, loosely defined set of activities she and I have been talking about which seem to us to fall under the general rubric ‘getting into publishing.’ These activities include proofreading (of course), also everything we see described in the wikipedia article on copy editing, as well as the article on editing. Also (more on the content production side here), graphic design and photography, also web design and development. Sort of the general idea is, arranging visual and textual elements for clarity and pleasantness. Taking textual and graphical work and making sure it fits standards and looks good on the page/screen. This kind of thing.
So… “getting into publishing.” How does one do it? Assume no relevant degree or relevant work experience. (Though there is a tiny bit of freelance well-recieved graphic design-y work such as wedding invitations, logo design, photography, etc.)
Is this (broad and admittedly not well defined) general area one it is wise to try to get into? Or is it a case where the market is shrinking too much to make it a good idea even if you’re reasonably talented and intelligent?
As a professional writer, I can say confidently that mainstream publishing is dead on its feet.
There have to be jobs because somebody is in them and books are being published and the process continues. But it’s a little like aspiring to run a marina on the Gulf Coast.
This is not directly germane to the OP, but as the discussion has wandered a little…
For a time (early-mid 90s) my bread and butter was fact-checking. I worked mostly at Conde Nast publications, but for other NY-based magazines as well–all monthlies. And yes, we had to tick EVERY WORD with a pencil, every letter if it was a proper name, to show that it had been checked. I recently asked a friend–now an editor at a Hearst mag–if this was still done, and he says it is.
Perhaps it is not a surprise to discover that Vogue and Harper’s have higher standards than Newsweek.
I work for a twice-weekly as a copy editor; it’s a small organization with fewer than a dozen people actually on the staff. I and the other proofreaders, the writers, the circulation guys and the coordinators are all “independent contractors.” No benefits, no security and shit money. But I love what I do and have slowly worked up from 1 day a week to 4.
So, in journalism anyway, there’s work to be had, I just don’t know that there are many* careers*.
How I got into this was by doing poorly paid and some unpaid internships. That gave me the work experience (and knowledge of what all those acronyms meant – back in the early 90s) to be qualified for jobs. I don’t even know how one would go about competing with a bunch of j-school and English degreed graduates with no academic credentials and no practical work experience. Is this person a genius with Photoshop? Miracle worker with InDesign? I saw a whole bunch of soft skills, but that sounds like the kind of thing I used to hear in interviews. “Oh I really like paying attention to detail and everyone at The Gap gives me their resumes to proofread! I’m totally qualified for the job!”
Seriously, those of us still working in this industry are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
My daughter is “supervising copy editor” for a group of scientific journals. She basically hires, trains, and occasionally fires her copy editors and does a fair bit of it herself. The real problem is that they often take the job for a year or less on their way to grad school. So it is done seriously, mostly by regular staff, although free-lancers are also used. She has never said anything about proofing, but I suppose the copy editors are expected to do it to some extent.
Ever since I have become TeX editor for an online journal, I have become much better at picking out errors in manuscripts (except for my own, of course). One thing to note: every manuscript has infinitely many typos. Proof: No matter how many you correct there is always at least one more. QED.