Editing Otherwise: Fresh Approaches to Stories and Settings

This blog post is about how to organize your arguments and develop a narrative arc in your cultural anthropology monograph. In academic writing, scholars make arguments and work with concepts and themes. Arguments and unique concepts form the "currency" of intellectual exchange, and so it's worth taking the time to reflect on and uncover what arguments lie in your ethnography and anthropological theorizing. It's common for arguments to be buried, not developed clearly enough,

Anthropologists use vignettes to tell stories about other people, but they aren't usually trained in the mechanics of how a first-person point of view works. This blog post explains the basics, so anthropologists can make informed decisions about which kind of first-person point of view is the best fit for a given project. What is POV? Point of view (POV) is the mode in which a story is told. The basic choice is between a first-person point of view (an "I" perspective) and a

A review of Scott Norton's book on developmental editing. Scott Norton's book is now a classic tome on many editors' bookcases. I first learned about developmental editing many years ago when setting up my editorial business, and this book spoke to me! I read chapters early each morning in bed. My background in fieldwork and anthropology made the case study approach come alive to me, and I quickly started applying this book in my practice and soon offered developmental editi

Anthropologists are often insecure about using dialogue in ethnographic vignettes and revert to familiar academic formats, such as block quotations. This is partly for good reason: They don’t want to misrepresent an actual conversation that occurred. This is not something fiction writers worry about. And there is a tension in anthropology between writing notes or a report, which might be dry but has the veneer of truth about it, and narrative. A well-told story might be much

As a writer, editor, and business owner, it’s important to let you—my friends, colleagues, and (potential) clients—know how I use AI in my editing business. The short answer is that I don’t. Let me clarify that as a policy: I don’t use generative AI tools to generate or assist my work as a developmental editor, consultant, line/copyeditor, or creative writer. Here are some of the reasons why: I’ve experimented with various tools and found them unreliable for copyediting They’

Have you ever started a year with good intentions for writing, set up a routine, and then just stopped? Many of us have been there at some point! It can be hard to set up and stick to a new routine, especially if your mind craves novelty and switching things up every so often. And even if you don't crave novelty, all it takes is for something else to get in the way and the best made plans come crashing down. So don’t be harsh on yourself if a routine breaks down – I recommend

When writing in English, you have two main tenses you can use: present tense and past tense. The present tense in academic writing Some scholars have argued against the use of the present tense when citing other scholars, suggesting it implies all the different voices could have a conversation outside of time, when in fact all their observations and opinions should be placed in a relevant historical and social context. So instead of: "Judith Butler claims ..." They would argu

This post discusses: certain common situations when italics are used the debate over when to use italics for non-English words in fiction common reasons why cultural anthropologists italicise non-English words Editing and language change One of the most exciting things about working as an editor is observing language change firsthand. Language and society are closely linked. And many of the changes that have taken place in recent years (including new style guide recommendatio