Shirley McShane Sillars

Recently I met a young man busy developing a computer program that aims to do the job of copy editors — but, I suppose, without the attached personality quirks and neurotic tendencies of folks engaged in my line of work.

It was a pleasure to meet him, although a little awkward,  since we were at a networking event. His work, it seems, would cancel out mine.

This so-called robot copy editor program promises to search your written work for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. It also seeks to fix improper word usage, the wrong noun-verb tense and use of passive voice. It aims to go above and beyond the average spell checker.

Like all good robots, it will work tirelessly for you at the push of a button. It will not need a coffee break or a week in the tropics to refresh its psyche. It won’t demand health care benefits or request an ergonomically correct desk chair. Sounds perfect, right?

Spell checker and advanced editing software have a place. They are a good beginning. But your Web site or professional blog should always have the human touch as the last defense. Humans cost money. Many industries have decided it’s an expense they can do without. News of outsourcing copy editing to India or of advanced technology that replaces the work of humans never bodes well for the humans struggling to feed themselves on the wages of their threatened craft.

I promised the young programmer I’d give it a try. After using his program for several months, I’m satisfied with it as a step up from the basic spell checker. There are things I like about it, mainly, the extra pair of eyes — even if they are robotic —  to review my work.

Listed below are examples of things this and other program extensions did not catch, things that are best left to a human copy editor:

• Duel citizenship will slip past spell check but humanitarian organizations may take issue with such challenging residency requirements.
• A woman on the run is wearing high heals. I’m guessing her need for a podiatrist rather than her fancy footwear will aid in her capture.
• Is the Lake Shore Drive in your city written the same way as the famous one in Chicago? It pays to have someone fact-check these details.
• Robots do not understand slang and will skip over industry buzz words, regional colloquialisms, and esoteric references.
• Even though the program offers some explanation for flagging a particular word or phrase, the explanatory text is boiler plate material and not customized for the context.
• In some cases, a plural noun is offered as the correction for a singular noun spelled correctly.
• As far as I know, robots have not yet mastered the art of the follow-up e-mail or phone call.

Everyone is entitled to making a living, whether it’s using her own eyes and training to read copy or to develop a program to do the same. I believe it will be a while before robots fully replace the work of the human copy editor.

As for outsourcing to India, well, that is an argument for another blog and another day.

There are some things I need to do every day.
I need several cups of freshly brewed coffee with cream.
I need to eat.
I need a certain amount of exercise.
I need to make time to read and to write.

When I was a working journalist, I wrote every day to earn my paycheck. Then, I read other writers’ work to pay the bills. I wrote columns and features on the side more for my own satisfaction than for the pay.

Each news organization has its own quota system or minimum daily requirements. Now that I’m on my own, it’s up to me to find the work. Between jobs, I discipline myself to write. Some of this is on a personal blog, some of  it is written in a personal journal. Sometimes, I just need to scribble ideas on one of the many little notepads I keep stashed throughout my daily travels. I have one in my purse. There’s another book in the console of my car.

Sometimes I’m out of ideas. This is where the Internet provides help. Here is a list of writing prompts I’ve bookmarked for days when the creative energy is running on fumes:

http://www.squidoo.com/journalwritingprompts

http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/

http://www.writersdigest.com/WritingPrompts This site offers ideas and the chance to compete against other writers for most creative answer.

NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month. Join this Ning community and take up the challenge of Web log posting every day for a month. Each month offers a theme. If you reach your goal, you get a nice widget to display.

NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month. This community helps you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That’s discipline.

Writer’s Digest list of the Top 101 Web sites for writers

No more excuses. Ignite the fire and keep it burning.

One of my favorite Detroit-area writers, Cindy LaFerle, recently listed on her blog the books that changed her life. We’re talking influential works, soul-stirring and forever-etched-on-your-psyche kinds of books. She listed more than 20 and then challenged her readers to compose their own list.

This is no easy task.

We have one book in common, The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank.

My first copy of this stirring work was a gift from my father. I stayed up way past my pre-teen bedtime to devour this classic. As a young person, I couldn’t believe such a story to be true, that I lived in a world capable of such treachery.  I read it again in high school. I’m sure I’ve reread it at least once in adulthood. I’ve since replaced the original paperback in my collection.

Anne’s story piqued my interest in The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. This is the true story of Polish Jews in exile. Esther’s family is captured by the Russians and sent to live a harsh life in a forced labor camp on the Siberian steppe. Ironically, the family’s suffering is their salvation.Had they remained in Poland, they would have been captured by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. Esther wouldn’t have survived to pen her memoir.

Other influential books of my childhood:

Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White

The Little House Series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle 

Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (I visited her home on Prince Edward Island, Canada.)

The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton

And, Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous, which I found out recently was not really a true story but a propaganda piece. (Too bad, this was a must-read when I was in high school.)

Books that influenced my adult life:

1984, by George Orwell

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

The Rabbit Series, by John Updike

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris, whose own personal history ultimately overshadowed any affect his books once had on readers. (Still, this book shook me when I read it in college.)

Speaking of shake-ups,  American Psycho, by Brett Easton Ellis, is the only book I ever read that made me physically ill. 

Pavilion of Women, by Pearl S. Buck (I read this book when I was in China.)

The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood 

What are your most influential books?

Idiopathic copyeditoritis

Have you heard of this? Don’t bother to Google it. I made it up.
Inspired by a fellow writer/editor who was at a loss for what to label her condition, I coined the term. Please don’t copy it. I have a team of lawyers.

The symptoms: Ability to retain and regurgitate copious amounts of random information that isn’t useful in everyday life but comes in handy when copy editing.
Inability to remember where you placed your car keys. Forgetting your child’s birth date, your home phone number or that you had a dental appointment today at noon.
.

After a rigorous few minutes at the Word Police Academy, I took the Anti-Redundancy Squad Entrance Exam and walked away with this snappy certificate. Not only do you get an official-looking document to add to your collection, but also a tablet of citations to issue should the need arise. There are 12 tests in all.

Here’s to happy testing and productive patrolling.

No matter how high-tech writing and publishing gets, I’ll never pitch my collection of dog-eared reference books.

Nestled between metal bookends on my desk are two dictionaries, a thesaurus, a book of synonyms and antonyms, The Associated Press Stylebook and Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. I also keep a modest number of specialized resources such as Harper’s Dictionary of Music and a Dorling Kindersley Pocket Guide to World History.

I’ve been collecting these guides since college. They’ve stood guard over my work for 20 years. While the Internet is getting more of my attention these days, I still regard my books as the final word.

But sometimes my books fall short.  There are two places online I’ll check first before expanding my search. Both of these Web sites offer excellent information on spelling, grammar and word usage. Both will help you learn something new today.

Barbara Wallraff’s Word Court is a weekly syndicated column that answers readers’ questions and poses fun word challenges. She also has a blog on The Atlantic, where she has worked for 25 years.

Washington Post copy desk chief Bill Walsh keeps his eyes open and his ears tuned to style and usage violations in all manner of media. In addition to his longstanding Web site, The Slot, he’s also published two books on writing and word usage.

You don’t need to be a member of  the media elite  to appreciate his posts. In fact, for those outside the business, Walsh’s  Sharp Points may shed some light on a number of timeless subjects, such as the difference between “good ol’ boys” and “the old boy network”. Enjoy.

One thing about casting yourself as a copy editor and proofreader is that it sometimes challenges folks to look for your mistakes.

While having a reader point out a typo is embarrassing, it proves my point: We all need copy editors. No one is above correction.  Not us mere mortals. Not the mighty computer.

If I traveled around my neighborhood wielding a big red pen, I’d have plenty of places to use it, from misspellings “wheel alinements done here” on an auto shop sign, to improper punctuation “fresh apple’s, 99 cent’s a pound” painted on a produce market flier, to this doozy on a pharmacy sign: If your sick their quick minute service.

I think we’ve all grown accustomed to these typos. There are Web sites dedicated to finding and posting such gaffes. Check out this for some laughs.

Some folks may argue that it doesn’t matter if the signs are wrong, just as long as the idea still comes across. But at what point does your idea get lost in the translation?

We forgive these errors in English-as-a-second language situations,  just as we hope citizens of  non-English speaking countries excuse our spotty foreign language skills. Otherwise, we really have no excuse. Do you want your Web site, your work, featured as the latest post on a blog specializing in “what not to do?”

Probably not.

Relying upon your computer’s spell checking program is about a safe as employing an umbrella in a hurricane. Case in point — and this comes from a newspaper — unforgivable in my book:

The article expounded the changes to Michigan’s school funding structure. What the writer meant to distinguish was the funding disparities between rich school districts and poor school districts. I suspect an over-reliance on  the spell checker changed the struggle to one between rich districts and poop districts.

This elicited many laughs from readers and within the  newsroom (it wasn’t our paper) as we pondered what a poop district might look like and why state funding was lacking.

Copy editor. Proofreader.

What comes to mind when you read these words?

Do you envision an uptight spinster with reading glasses perched on a pinched face? Do you see a gnarled hand wielding a red pen? Do you imagine the kind of person who interrupts a great story, a joke — a movie — to point out an error in syntax or grammar?

Maybe in your mind’s eye  you see a bloated, worn former reporter parked behind a Mac, growling at the young writers who turn in their stories 30 seconds past deadline.

Maybe you draw a blank altogether. If so, you are not alone.

While being a copy editor and proofreader won’t dazzle the pretty people sipping martinis at a cocktail party — trust me, I know — it is a vital and necessary job.

Proofreading and editing make the pretty people look prettier. They make the smart folks read smarter. Think of us as the makeup artists, the lighting guys, the behind-the-scenesters who pull it all together. We don’t get the credit. But we get the satisfaction of knowing we helped you look your best.

If you’re looking for a snippy spinster with a red pen in her pocket, keep going. That’s not what I’m about. The aim here is to be efficient, helpful, quick, thorough and have fun.

We like to think of our pens as accessories.

Outside the window of my grandmother’s hospital room, the world rushes by, oblivious to what’s happening inside.

The autumn wind plucks leaves from branches and tosses them earthward, where they swirl and scud across the blacktop with the current of passing vehicles.

The flow of traffic on the nearby road pulses in fits of urgency then ebbs, following the cycles of day into night. The hands spin around the clock, dictating work shifts, feeding schedules and visiting hours.

Inside the dimly lit room, my grandmother is virtually motionless in her bed. Aside from the beeps and clicks of the equipment and the ticking of the wall clock ,the room is silent.

In recovery from hip surgery the day before, she is nearly immobilized. Occasionally she sighs, opens her eyes or clenches her left hand against the metal support bar at her bedside.

Outside the door of her room, nurses and aides rush this way and that in the halls and in and out of patients’ rooms. Doctors are summoned from hidden speakers, the monotone of a computerized voice interrupting the bland Muzak.

It seems as though my grandmother is a hostage in this glass bottle of a room, adrift in swirling waves of uncertainty.

As I gaze at her small form tucked under the covers, I marvel at how advanced age has finally found a way to slow her down, to stop her obedience to the clock, her perpetual servitude.

This woman, who celebrates her 91st birthday today, rarely slowed down enough to sit in her lifetime. For years, she woke at 6 am. to perform calisthenics, then make a full breakfast, still leaving enough time to do herself up right for the day. This meant putting on a dress, beads and earrings, fixing her hair and applying makeup. No matter what.

Her home was always spotless. Everything in it was clean, pressed and shining. Her yards flourished with flowers and fruit trees, berry bushes and a full vegetable garden.

She always had time to bake pies and cookies and cakes and a spare casserole because there was always someone in her family or the neighborhood in need. She had greeting cards and stationery by the ream for every occasion on hand. She’d often tuck into a card a hand-written note or poem to add extra cheer.

Her life was dedicated to caring for her family and looking after friends and neighbors.

But now, seeing her so small and frail and stripped of all that defines her, I wonder: Who is she now? Who will fill her void?

The nurses tell me they are impressed with her strength and stoicism. They say she’s been so cooperative and sweet, even refusing her pain medication at times.

This isn’t the first time that age has forced my grandma to slow down. She’s broken her wrist, her shoulder and, two years ago, suffered a nearly fatal skull fracture.

Although she survived that episode, she’s never been the same. She started wearing pants for one thing. Then she changed the color of her hair. Most shocking of all, she started peppering her conversations with profanity. She wasn’t what she had been, but we were all grateful to have her around.

Each time the recovery has been slower, but the determination to carry on still sparkled in her eyes.

Inside my grandma’s hospital room, as the light outside drains from the sky, I wonder: Am I peering through a portal into my own future? Will I learn to slow down before nature pulls the rug out from under my feet? Will this be the last time I see her alive?

Outside the hospital, the world bears down on us all if we let it. We rush from point A to B without thought to the larger meaning of what we’re doing. We’re slaves to the clock, almost always too busy to do things like visit the sick.

As I let go of my grandmother’s hand and lean in to give her a kiss, I see the clock. It’s telling me I must go. Visiting hours are over.

I amend one thought before I go: My grandmother isn’t stripped of everything that defines who she is. Take away the strand of pearls, the matching shoes and purse, separate husband from wife, mother from child, put a woman alone in a room and watch her spirit fill it to capacity.

I suspect however she leaves this room, it will take a while for that to go away.

Shirley Sillars is a copy editor for the Daily Tribune. Contact her at s.sillars@excite.com.

Originally published in the Daily Tribune on November 13, 2005.

IF YOU HAPPEN TO TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE ROAD on Horseshoe Drive in Rural Brandon Township and gaze to the right, just past the house on the crest of the hill, you might catch a glimpse of Double E Ranch.
If you do, you’ll probably have to look again.
That’s because you’ve undoubtedly caught sight of Double E’s livestock — spindle-legged, long-necked curious creatures with perky tufts sprouting from the tops of their heads.
The big birds – known as emu – are a study in contradictions.
They are graceful ballerinas prancing in brown feather tutus.
They are serpentine investigators, quietly slithering their snakelike necks though fence openings, fixing their unblinking brown eyes on a source of interest.
They are klutzes when spooked, darting like panicky pin balls around their pens, kicking up clouds of dust.
NATIVE TO AUSTRALIA but raised in the United States for most of this century, emu are flightless birds raised for their meat, feathers, skin and the oil derived from their sizable fat stores. Emu oil is used in a number of products and his highly regarded in many parts of the world for its healing and regenerative properties.
In rural Oakland County, where wooded lots, rolling hills and horse stables are more the norm, the sight of 5-foot-tall birds padding around in pens is still a head turner.
Interest in emu ranching as well as the food and products derived from the prehistoric birds is growing, said Renee Miskey, owner of Double E Ranch. If she and other emu ranchers have their way, the big birds won’t be an enigma for long.
Miskey raises and sells most of her emu for their meat. She also sells (but doesn’t manufacture herself) various emu-based products, such as hand lotions, soap, and pet food. She collects and empties the large, dark green emu eggs and fashions them into ornaments, jewelry boxes and knickknacks. Once a month she sets up a vendor booth at Royal Oak Farmers Market.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT EMU ARE, where they’re from, or their useful properties. Least of all do they understand how quirky and personable the big birds can be.
Miskey’s trying to change that. For a small fee, she hosts student groups at her 10-acre spread in the country. She’s more than happy to “talk emu” with shoppers at the Royal Oak Farmers Market.
“A lot of children are not used to the farm environment,” she said. “This is one way to show them how ‘products’ are brought up. Some kids don’t understand that pork chops start out as farm animals.”
Miskey and husband, Gene Beesley, have been raising emu for almost five years. They started with 20 birds and have had as many as 250 at one time. They are raising 170 birds now and join about 120 other emu ranchers in Michigan.
The work involved in emu ranching is minimal, she said, with most of it front-ended in the building of the pens and shelters.
Nothing goes to waste in emu ranching.
“Ninety-seven percent of the bird goes into production,” she said. “Emu put more back into the soil than they take out. They live on the ranch year-round. They are pellet and grain fed. There are no chemicals, steroids, hormones or antibiotics given.”
Learning to successfully breed and maintain the birds has been an odyssey of trial and error, Miskey said.
Much of her information has been gathered from the American Emu Association’s Michigan chapter and from other ranchers.
“Most of it is learning how to (successfully) hatch them and take care of them,” she said.
Miskey at one time kept riding horses in her barn, but switched to the exotic birds as a way to spend more time at home.
“It was my husband’s idea,” she said.
“With my love of animals and my nursing career, this was a way for me to be at home and take care of something.”
ON A RECENT OVERCAST, HUMID AFTERNOON the emu were active but quiet in their pens, which separate the birds according to age. Only the striped hatchlings emitted a discernible cheep-cheep-cheeping. Adult emu utter a soft, throaty sound that resembles the beating of a bongo drum and could easily be mistaken for bullfrogs in a nearby swamp. Miskey said emu are quiet neighbors and don’t generate the waste or odor of other livestock.
While the birds are raised for slaughter and for the most part are regarded as such, Miskey said some emu are extremely personable and reach out with their gaping beaks and tug on her heart strings. A certain number are kept around for breeding purposes, she said.
“Those you get attached to easily,” she said. “You know they’re not going anywhere.”
Emu, when accustomed to humans who are taught how to approach them, are incredibly curious and friendly. They aren’t beyond nipping at shiny metal buttons, dangling earrings and long hair. A human entering a pen of the big birds can expect to be surrounded, pecked and prodded.
“I love to watch them hatch and grow,” Miskey said of the personal rewards of emu ranching. “Nature is exciting to me.”

For more information on tours of Double E Ranch, which is less than an hour’s drive from southeast Oakland County, or about emu products and crafts, call 248-627-4286 or send e-mail to dbleranch@aol.com.

Originally published in The Daily Tribune on July 4, 1999.