Recording The Discussion

You will need to have an appropriate way of recording your interviews. You may choose to make notes, but if you do not do shorthand in some form it may be hard to get all the important points down. You may taperecord the interview (as long as you have the interviewee’s permission to do so), but this then means going through the entire interview again in order to extract the elements you want.

You may have an assistant who can make notes, or operate a recording device, while you conduct the discussion, but you cannot be sure that another person will take down the key points as you perceive them. Whichever method you choose will have advantages and disadvantages, so you can only select the one that you think will work best in the circumstances. If you do choose to use a mechanical recording device, do make sure it is working properly and that you have an adequate supply of batteries, tapes or other items as required.

Writing Up The Interview

Checking With The Interviewee

Proof-Reading Skills

Proof-reading is important if your magazine is to look professional; it allows the following things to be checked:

• Spelling
• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Layout

When proof-reading, make sure you look carefully at each word – ‘Seeing’ and ‘hearing’ each word is helpful and some people proof-read sentences backwards, which they say helps them to see individual words more clearly! Look for mis-spelled words, inappropriate punctuation, words and sentences inappropriately split (‘orphans’ and ‘widows’ if odd letters or words are split off from others), consistency of fonts, sizes and styles of headings and consistency of writing style. If you are ‘marking up’ copy for someone else to alter, you need to learn the correct signs to use and you can find these in books on the subject (some of the more common ones are shown below).

Proof-reading can be assisted by spell/grammar checking software; however, computers do not always pick up every error or check for ambiguity. Also, much of this software is American and therefore does not always allow for other forms of the English language. And sometimes computers can be counter-productive as they may automatically substitute a quite inappropriate word for one you have written, and this may not subsequently be noticed before publishing.

As well as checking straightforward things such as spelling and punctuation, if proof-reading is done by someone other than the person who has written the material, it also gives another perspective on what has been written. This is useful, as it can help you confirm that the writing is clear, understandable and meaningful. It is also useful to have a second opinion on any potentially contentious contributions, or parts of contributions and, if you have taken out insurance (see Chapter 20) against libel, your insurance company may insist that material is read by a legally qualified person in order to avoid possible litigation.

Proof-reading is a specialist activity and you would be well advised to leave it to a person who does it professionally. This may be costly, but should give you a high-quality result. If you ask a non-professional to proof-read for you, you need to be sure they are capable of doing the job.

It is also important to brief your proof-reader appropriately. Some proofreaders will try to change the language used, as well as correcting typing or grammatical mistakes. This can result in words being used that may change the meaning, the style or the construction of the writing. If this is done, you may need to check with the original author that the corrections are acceptable; it depends on what agreement you have with contributors as to how much editing is permissible. And, if much editing is done, you may want to send proofs to contributors, both as a courtesy and as a safeguard to you, before going to press.

Finally, consider when proof-reading will be done. You may wish to get items proof-read singly, or you may want to send the whole publication to be proof-read at the same time. Each has its advantages. It is administratively easier to send it all at once, but it may take longer because your proof-reader has a larger volume of material to go through at one time.

There is a professional body for proof-readers (The Society of Editors and Proofreaders) and that is the place to find a qualified person if you need one: (see Appendix 4 for their contact details).The Society also has a Style Guide on their website, covering topics such as proof correction marks.