Current location - Training Enrollment Network - Books and materials - Suggestions on Revising the Basic Rules of Book Editing
Suggestions on Revising the Basic Rules of Book Editing
With the passage of time, great changes have taken place in the publishing industry. In order to comply with this change, it is necessary to revise the original Regulations. When revising the regulations, the author suggests following several basic principles, namely, highlighting the authority of the regulations, embodying the basic laws of editing work, paying attention to the practicality and operability of the regulations, and taking into account the integrity and systematicness of the regulations. Now I will talk about some immature personal views on these basic principles. "Regulations" should reflect the general law of editing and publishing process, and describe the basic steps of editing and publishing process in detail. Reflect the universality and universality of editing and publishing work, which is conducive to the implementation of various publishing houses. For example, in the actual editing workflow, the integration of preliminary examination and editing process is very common. The so-called integration of editing and editing means that the editing and editing process is regarded as the first instance, or the first instance is regarded as the editing and editing process, and the two are confused and combined into one. According to the "Regulations" on the three-trial system, the first trial "is generally held by a professional and technical editor or an assistant editor with certain conditions. The responsible editor must carefully read the whole manuscript word for word, check the political inclination, ideological taste, academic or artistic value, scientificity, knowledge, structural style and writing level of the manuscript, evaluate its quality, social and economic benefits, and put forward suggestions for manuscript selection and revision. " In other words, "preliminary examination" is to examine the overall level and publishing value of the manuscript from the overall perspective. Only when the manuscript is approved, the overall level is good, and it has certain publishing value, can it enter the next process for "editing and processing". The "Regulations" describes the editing process as "processing and sorting is an indispensable link in editing work. There are inevitably some problems in the content, style, quoted materials, language and logical reasoning of the manuscript after review, which need to be processed and sorted out to make the content more perfect, the style more rigorous, the materials more accurate, the language more fluent and the logic more rigorous, to eliminate general technical and common sense errors, to prevent principled errors and to meet the requirements of typesetting and proofreading. This work can be held by the responsible editor, or a special organization or person in charge can be set up. Compared with the review in the previous stage, the processing and finishing are more in-depth and specific, requiring careful thinking and word-for-word revision, and no doubt can be let go. " In other words, "processing" is to modify, polish and perfect the manuscript on the basis of publishability, so as to make it more perfect. It can be seen that the purpose and task of the two are different. It's not appropriate to be one. Therefore, it must be emphasized that "review" is followed by "handling", and it is emphasized in the "regulations" that the two cannot be integrated.

In addition, it is suggested that there should be a clear statement about "processing and sorting" after the third trial or "processing and sorting" after the first trial, and that social science manuscripts should be treated differently from natural science manuscripts. The author believes that some ideological and political manuscripts involving politics, military affairs, economy, culture, literature, art, religion, history and geography, as well as some primary and secondary school textbooks, must go through the third trial before they can enter the "processing and sorting" procedure. It is extremely important to check the manuscript review. If the manuscript fails to pass due to ideological and political problems and is not found in the first trial, editing and processing is a waste of time. So be sure to review the manuscript before (referring to the first three trials). "Processing and sorting" can only be carried out after the first three trials have passed. After editing and processing, this kind of manuscript needs to be re-examined and finally proofread (referring to the last three trials). But for ordinary books, such as science and technology, life, health care, popularization, popular books and so on. It is best not to force them in the order of the program. Especially for popular books such as practical life and health care, there is generally not much controversy about the choice of manuscripts. There is a small probability that the draft selection opinions in the first instance will be overturned by the second instance and the final instance. Therefore, it is considered that it can be published in the first instance, and after being approved by the editor-in-chief, it can enter the process of "processing and sorting", first, then "processing and sorting", and then review and final review. After "processing and sorting", it is helpful to improve the practicality of book editing and proofreading quality for general manuscripts. Of course, allowing a proper change in the order of reviewing natural science manuscripts does not mean that the review of such manuscripts is unimportant, nor can it be understood as simplifying the review and final review procedures. On the contrary, the three evaluations must be sound, but there is no need to divide them into three evaluations. Suggestions on universal issues like this should be reflected in the Regulations. Rules guide the editing and publishing process, so the basic flow chart is essential. The original "Regulations" lacked the flow chart of editing and publishing, which was not systematic enough. Editing norms are embodied in all stages of the editing process and can reflect the overall law of editing, so the editing process is essential. It is suggested that "concise editing and publishing flow chart" be added to the Regulations for the reference of all organs. A concise editing and publishing flow chart shall include the following contents:

Argumentation of topic selection → soliciting contributions → author's submission (manuscript is finalized, clear and neat) → preliminary review → final review (the first three reviews) → editing and processing → review → final review (the last three reviews) → publishing → one school → two schools → three schools → proofreading → printing → quality inspection of finished books → distribution → feedback from readers and authors.

In addition, it is suggested that natural science manuscripts can enter the stage of "processing and sorting" with the consent of the editorial director after they have passed the preliminary examination, and then be reviewed and finalized. The frequency and order of peer review can be properly adjusted to improve the publishing efficiency of such books, while not missing the necessary links of peer review.

To sum up, in today's publishing industry, which is gradually changing from being a "bridge between authors and readers" to "providing information services" for customers, quality is still fundamental. "Regulations" is an industry standard, which regulates the specific operation of editing and publishing process, and the fundamental purpose is to ensure the quality of books. Therefore, it is of great significance for the whole industry to attach importance to the revision of the Code.

Book quality is the embodiment of the image of a publishing house, and book quality is also the embodiment of editing ability and quality. However, the guarantee and improvement of book quality is not entirely the responsibility of the responsible editor, but a major event that the whole industry should grasp and manage, and it is also a concern of the whole society. Imagine if responsible editors had more time to calmly deal with mistakes in manuscripts, instead of rushing to publish books to seize the market; Without the pressure of economic indicators, responsible editors don't run away and produce so many varieties every year to strive for economic benefits; If a responsible editor has a little time to improve himself, enrich himself and improve his self-cultivation; If we can be stricter in the final judgment and final judgment, we will not be afraid of offending people and really play a good role in quality control; If the author can be more responsible for his own manuscript, he can improve the quality of the manuscript one step; Proofreading can be more careful; If managers can regard publishing as a cultural heritage and take social responsibility from the perspective of protecting the land, instead of desperately expanding the variety scale for economic benefits ... then the quality of books will not drop to such a serious extent.

Professor hardman of Cornell University in the United States did an experiment: put several bees in a bottle, with the bottom of the bottle facing the light, and the bees kept hitting the wall in the direction of the light, and finally stopped at the bright side and died. Then, they turned the bees into butterflies, and after a few minutes all the butterflies flew out. The reason is that butterflies make many attempts in the upward direction, downward direction, light direction and backlight direction, and change direction if one direction fails. Although it is inevitable to hit a wall many times, I finally flew to the bottleneck and blurted it out. Professor Hadamard concluded: "To try various methods to solve problems, sticking to one direction may lead to a dead end. Sometimes, it is much better to go on the rampage than to sit still. " The same is true of the quality of books. It is not enough to only grasp the problem of responsible editing, or to emphasize the problem of editing and publishing. There are many reasons and various solutions. At least from the management point of view, the Regulations put forward a universal model and method on how to effectively improve the quality of books, which should be our goal.