The Elements of Editing: A Modern Guide For Editors And Journalists

As a novel writer I found a few of the chapters really useful, some interesting, and about a third of it was either for newspaper editors or is outdated by technology.

The last book I read was The Elements Of Style, and while I would call that a book for writers, The Elements Of Editing is for editors. It's been useful to get into the mind of an editor for my own self-editing and also for working out how I want to proceed with the editing process.

It's also great to get another opinion on writing and I especially enjoyed reading Plotnick's defense of the passive sentence.

I wish I could find a more current updated version of this book. The Elements of Editing is perfectly edited. Of all the books on writing I've read this one cuts the fat and is nothing but what I need. There are no long winded stories and analogies that go on for paragraphs and pages. Nope, every page of this book had a post it for notes and the notes were straight forward. Just think of when you read reviews that say, "They could of said it in half the pages."

Plotnik says it in half the pages...and it is still entertaining.

Informative, if now somewhat dated, basic grounding in the editorial process.

Plotnik was the editor of American Libraries for many years. This is a good basic guide to what editors do and how they go about it. If you are new to editing or new to writing, I recommend it.