Writing for MEW

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Writing for MEW

This topic has 15 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 16 December 2016 at 21:14 by Carl Wilson 4.

Viewing 16 posts - 1 through 16 (of 16 total)

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16 December 2016 at 09:58 #272145
Carl Wilson 4
Participant
@carlwilson4
It has given me a proper warm glow to know that at least a few people have benefitted from the rotary table article and will now themselves be proud owner-operators of motorised indexing gubbins.

I have to admit to doing my fair share of whinging on these pages about the content of MEW. I'm not a subscriber because there is seldom anything in it that I want to read, so I will scan it in the newsagents and buy if there is an article or two that interests me.

I decided to produce something that I would like to see in MEW, hence the rotary table conversion.

I would urge others to contribute something to the magazine. I write a fair bit, both in my work and in my leisure engineering activities. I know that there will be some who haven't written a word since school. I can personally vouch for the fact that Neil Wyatt will bend over backwards to assist anyone who wants to contribute to the magazine.

Carl.
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16 December 2016 at 09:58 #38383
Carl Wilson 4
Participant
@carlwilson4
16 December 2016 at 10:54 #272156
Neil Wyatt
Moderator
@neilwyatt
Thanks Carl,

Anyone who hasn't written for a long time need not worry; try writing a short piece or submitting a reader's tip. If it's a good idea or an interesting story, we can knock it into shape together.

Neil
16 December 2016 at 11:19 #272160
Anonymous
Posted by Carl Wilson 4 on 16/12/2016 09:58:39:

…………….I can personally vouch for the fact that Neil Wyatt will bend over backwards to assist anyone….

Not really my predilection!

As for writing been there, done that, bored the pants off people. And there's more to come. Neil has three articles from me for consideration, plus another couple in preparation. But they may have to wait until I've written a couple for submission to ME.

I'd be right pee'd off if an editor altered my copy, unless there were typos. Having written an article I go through it several times checking for a logical flow, things that might need more explanation, or are superfluous. And what, if anything, diagrams or pictures add, and thus if they're necessary or not.

Andrew
16 December 2016 at 11:48 #272165
pgk pgk
Participant
@pgkpgk17461
Posted by Andrew Johnston on 16/12/2016 11:19:13:…

I'd be right pee'd off if an editor altered my copy…

..made me chuckle..it's the job description
16 December 2016 at 11:49 #272166
Geoff Theasby
Participant
@geofftheasby
Andrew, not getting at you, but I have edited publications for a prestigious organisation which attracted opinionated people like flies. It was common to encounter some who would not allow so much as a comma of their contribution to be altered. This was often at variance to their ability or expertise. If they persist, rejection is the best response. The function of an editor is to 'edit', and if if their decision conflicts with contributors, well they carry the can if they get it wrong. Rest assured I have encountered very little of this attitude in model engineering, but I note that it has occurred in the past. Accept with good grace that the final decision is theirs, and enjoy the process! Perhaps I should add that my contributions have been 'edited' at times, both Club News and my independent contributions, including one being completely rejected by a peer-reviewed journal in another field. Accordingly, I rewrote it and submitted it elsewhere, who accepted it willingly.

Geoff

Edited By Geoff Theasby on 16/12/2016 12:26:13
16 December 2016 at 12:11 #272173
Carl Wilson 4
Participant
@carlwilson4
Hi Andrew,

I also took pains to ensure my meaning was clear and that there was nothing superfluous. The thing is, there is only so much space in a commercial magazine like MEW. Whether it’s readershiplike it or not, a magazine is chiefly a vehicle for adverts and exists to sell copy. For example, mine and Dave’s Arduino based pieces were put up together in an attempt to pull in the potential audience of “Makers”.

So you can see that however well written an article may be it needs must be edited. To do so without losing the original author’s “voice” and the flow of the piece is a real skill.

Carl.
16 December 2016 at 12:20 #272174
Anonymous
Wot, me opinionated? It's enough to make one flounce off.

Of course if there are typos it's fine for them to be corrected. Changing grammer is more dangerous, as it can unintentionally change the meaning.

Most of my writing experience post-school has been for international research journals, where the writer is firmly in control of the article. Of course the editor gets the article reviewed, and publication is at the editors discretion. The author may well get the article back with notes on a re-write, or a rejection. But the editor does not alter the article on his own. It is also normal to get printers proofs before publication so that the author can mark up any errors from the original. That has happened to me once for the magazines, for an article in ME that contained quite a lot of mathematical equations.

Andrew
16 December 2016 at 12:28 #272175
Anonymous
Posted by Carl Wilson 4 on 16/12/2016 12:11:24:

So you can see that however well written an article may be it needs must be edited. To do so without losing the original author's "voice" and the flow of the piece is a real skill.

As far as I'm aware the articles I have had published so far in MEW and ME have been pretty much verbatim to my original copy.

Andrew
16 December 2016 at 12:50 #272178
Neil Wyatt
Moderator
@neilwyatt
> Of course if there are typos it's fine for them to be corrected. Changing grammer is more dangerous, as it can unintentionally change the meaning.

Freudian slip?

It depends entirely on the article, the more technical they are, generally the less work they need, but not always. I would be great if I could just choose what to put in each issue and send it to the designer!

Even experienced writers can do things like slip between tenses or perspective, repeat sections or order things in a way that confuses a reader unfamiliar with the subject. My main aim when editing is to do it in a way that the author will consider it faithful to the original, even if there have been a lot of changes.

On benefit I had coming to this job was a lot of experience editing reports and material produced by people from a wide range of backgrounds, but often young graduates who knew their subject well, but had no experience of writing either formal reports or informal news articles.

I've just written for an unrelated magazine, there were some interesting 'rules' I had to follow (e.g. use 'we' not 'I' as I was 'writing on behalf of the magazine', and produce several sections each with a specific word-count.

The hardest thing for me is editing my own work – when I get the proofs back there are always far more changes to be made to my bad spelling and poor grammar than anyone else's.

Neil
16 December 2016 at 15:15 #272208
Bazyle
Participant
@bazyle
Well it's great that the mags have contributors and staff that are at least semi-literate. We employ so many people from other countries or our own with the 'benefit' of modern teaching methods that it is hard to find any documentation that couldn't do with a re-write. Yesterday we in the technical section managed to get hold of a new product instruction leaflet that was based on the old one that had been kept away from us. Almost every page needed correction. Often it seems our marketing people or 'Brand' as they like to be called are only interested in the layout of pictures and silly graphics and hang the meaning of the words.
16 December 2016 at 15:38 #272213
geoff walker 1
Participant
@geoffwalker1
I have to admit to doing my fair share of whinging on these pages about the content of MEW. I'm not a subscriber because there is seldom anything in it that I want to read, so I will scan it in the newsagents and buy if there is an article or two that interests me.

I'm with you, unfortunately they keep sealing it up in a plastic bag which discourages the casual viewer.

Sadly I'm not not hard faced enough to open the bag have a look and then put it back.

geoff
16 December 2016 at 15:53 #272217
Robert Newman
Participant
@robertnewman73767
It would be nice to have something you wrote printed in a mag, I'll keep hoping. lol
16 December 2016 at 17:53 #272245
Carl Wilson 4
Participant
@carlwilson4
Regarding published articles being verbatim to the original copy, that just shows the skill of the editor.

I thought mine was verbatim too until I compared them. Most of what got left out generated queries here that were subsequently dealt with.

I know the type of content Neil wants to see more of are shorter pieces describing a complete idea, for example how a particular piece of ad hoc tooling was made to overcome a particular problem.

That is also the sort of content that would make me more likely to buy the magazine.
16 December 2016 at 20:32 #272272
Neil Wyatt
Moderator
@neilwyatt
Posted by Carl Wilson 4 on 16/12/2016 17:53:03:
Regarding published articles being verbatim to the original copy, that just shows the skill of the editor.

I thought mine was verbatim too until I compared them. Most of what got left out generated queries here that were subsequently dealt with.

I just did a compare documents and there were 125 changes! That sounds drastic but they were all minor none of these were deletions or changes of text more severe than swapping in 'Photograph' for 'Photo' at the start of a sentence and the like. Otherwise it was adding a subhead, removing all that careful formatting (with vanilla reformatting for the designer), the odd typo and missing comma and merging the reference list. I don't think I even had to reorder any text.

An interesting exercise – I haven't actually done this before.

Neil
16 December 2016 at 21:14 #272283
Carl Wilson 4
Participant
@carlwilson4
That is interesting Neil. The biggest omission I noticed was the explanation I gave for not using micro-stepping. It didn’t really alter the flow of the piece and what queries came out of it where dealt with here.

Incidentally, further to my earlier post, the Arduino driven rotary table counts as an ad hoc piece of tooling to me. In my article I wanted to show how easy it is to solve a problem like repeated error free indexing using an Arduino.

Taking the software as an integral machine element is key. You don’t have to be a top flight programmer. There are so many ready written examples and programmes out there that it is a fairly simple matter to find one that comes close to what you want. You can then modify it as required.

Carl.
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