Owmapow the Incorrigible

by Channie Greenberg

Dear Freelance Science Editors:

I am not sending this email Bcc since you will be meeting each other at the seminar. Please confirm your participation to scied@CTI.edu. Use “Attention: Science Editors' Workshop” as your subject.

If you require a parking permit, please also submit your car's registration number, make, and color, and your mobile phone number. Even if you need no permit, please attach your CV to your response.

You will join our freelance editors team and will aid our scholars with their research proposals for the National Science Institute.

The topic deadlines are:
Nov. 05: Medicine, and Social Sciences
Nov. 13: Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Sciences, Ecology, Systematic Biology, Oceanography, and Physics

Let me know if you have topic preferences or questions. I look forward to meeting you and to working with you.

Best Regards,

Shai-Li Vallo
Head
Scientific Publications Department
California Technology Institute

* * *

Ms. Vallo:

Finally! My papers are attached. Please let me now if anything is missing. My references are from CEOs of small presses. They produced my Estuary Creature Delights and my Hedgehogs and Lobsters, respectively. Also, you've not yet told me how many hours per week are required for each project. Please advise.

Dr. Owen Brownstone

* * *

Hi Owen Brownstone:

Attached are the forms that will clarify what is required from our freelance editors.

Best,
Shai-Li Vallo

* * *

Hello All,

My name is Yasmin Poola and I'll be attending the CTI editing workshop. I'd be happy to share expenses with anyone willing to drive. I live in Los Feliz. Please contact me immediately.

Thanks,
Yasmin

* * *

Hi Owen,

I just spoke to Gaya. She lives in Burbank and is willing to take us in her car if we can get to the Burbank Sonoco station. She said she'd leave around 9:15. She's going to speak with Liel Smith about picking her up, also.

I think, after all, I'll take the bus. There's one leaving at 8:30 that gets to Pasadena at a little after 10:00, thus giving me time to find the meeting place and then to have some coffee. There's another bus leaving at 9:15 that arrives at Pasadena at 10:51. Let me know if you want to ride the bus with me.

Yasmin

* * *

Yasmin:

I think I'll go with Gaya since I live fairly close to Burbank. Worse case, I will drive myself to the seminar. Have you worked for CTI in the past?

Owen

* * *

Dear Owen Brownstone:

Thanks for forms. I tried to “send” them into the system, but it appears that one of the forms has to be signed by your accountant or bank manager.

Best,
Shai-Li Vallo

* * *

Ms. Vallo:

Scans of my forms, including the one that had to be signed by my bank manager, are attached. Do you need anything more before our meeting? What is the agenda? What volume of work do you anticipate? What is the compensation? I have to raise funds for the care and feeding of a tank of Pacific Lamprey.

Owen Brownstone

* * *

Good Morning Shai-Li!

It was lovely to meet you, Mila, and Emily. I am wowed by your organizational skills; it takes a great command of resources to funnel so many sets of data through such a short time frame.

As per me, I'm happy to report that in terms of form and content, the government documents that your employees finesse are similar to the papers I've produced as a professor (I'm an oceanographer by training.) Hence, I'm that much more eager to take on your work. Are your remuneration rates closer to 150 or to 200 dollars per hour?

Warmly,
Owmapow (Owen Brownstone)

* * *

Yasmin:

Hi! Have you heard from CTI, yet? I've heard nothing.

Owmapow

* * *

Owmapow:

I haven't heard a thing. I'm glad, though, since I have something else to finish before undertaking any new work.

Yasmin

* * *

Dear Brona Marshe,

Our Scientific Publications Department will provide editing services for NIS proposals submitted by your new hires, including those starting at CTI October of this year. Your faculty should send their proposals directly to me. Be aware that tenured faculty, too, will be requiring our services.

To wit, attached, please find a list of our freelance editors and of their areas of specialization. Your people are welcome to contact them directly if that better suits them.

Best Regards,
Shai-Li Vallo
Head
Scientific Publications Department

* * *

Good Morning Shai-Li!

When will new editors receive assignments?

Owmapow

* * *

Dear Owmapow:

The work is only dribbling in, so, thus far, we are using only in-house editors.

Shai-Li

* * *

Dear Owmapow:

Can you handle this one? Let me know. Use Track Changes and then return the material to me.

Best,
Shai-Li

* * *

Dear Shai-Li:

Absolutely!

Owmapow

* * *

Hi Owmapow:

I will be reviewing your edits, but won't be able to get to them before next Thursday, so Wednesday is your deadline. With regard to remuneration, the official rate of seventy dollars per double spaced page is what we're offering unless I find that a particular proposal requires major effort (I don't believe that any recent proposals require “major effort.”)

Best,
Shai-Li

* * *

Hi Shai-Li!

I'm hoping to get most of this piece worked on during this weekend's remaining hours. When you count pages, are you counting submitted pages or edited pages? The former will almost always be more than the latter.

Owmapow

* * *

Hi Shai-Li!

Gee whiz! There's a ton of fluff in this research proposal. Attached is my Track Changes version of just its abstract. Ought I to proceed with editing or to wait until the primary investigator receives these edits?

Owmapow

* * *

Dear Owmapow

While the abstract needed smoothing out and supplementation, you over-edited. Your role is to make the text fluid, not to rewrite it. Also, you are tasked to point out where there is missing information and to make suggestions about how to fill in those gaps, but not actually to fill them in.

Finally, it was not necessary for you to edit the proposal's references for consistency. All that you ought to have done was to check whether or not documentation was used in a coherent manner. I highlighted these points in the attached file.

Best,
Shai-Li

* * *

Shai-Li:

Is it possible to contact you tonight? I would like to continue to edit my assigned proposal, but I don't want to invest any more time in it before I am entirely sure that I fully grasp the parameters of my job. Once I “get the gist” of your system, I will be able to move fairly rapidly through my work. A brief phone call would help me. On balance, I'm glad I erred on the side of “too much” rather than of “too little” refinement.

Owmapow

* * *

Dear Shai-Li Vallo:

I am a Ph.D. who, himself, was once a National Institute for Science Summer Scholar at CTI. I had my first academic paper published within a year of my completing my terminal degree. I was invited to respond, both orally and in writing to many national conference programs, as well. Further, I was an invited guest editor for Ocean and Coastal Management. What's more, recently, I helped some internationally known postdocs reshape a chapter, which was accepted for inclusion in a state of the art book. Also, I regularly teach science writing and editing.

Whereas I am sure that you receive much balderdash from pompous academics with underdeveloped social skills, their sounding off doesn't excuse poor writing. Plus, whereas I know you're counting down to retirement, it remains the case that we, your editors, deserve evenhandedness when given assignments.

Said differently, I am a critical thinker who has spent his entire life helping others achieve linguistic parsimony. In short, something that snorts, has a mane, and has a long tail might be a zebra or a giraffe, but is most likely a horse. Similarly, Geotria australis is not identical to Entosphenus tridentatus and never will be. Poor writing cannot be gussied up to become sound writing except to dupes and their kin.

More exactly, I spent time in government offices and at the bank completing the forms you sent me. I spent time at your editors' seminar. I spent time assessing the abstract you emailed to me.

Even so, I must decline engaging in any additional work for CTI. While I need the income to feed my eels, and while I enjoy highlighting the nuances of others' ideas, I also need to trust that my decades' of science writing and science editing experience remain valid. Accordingly, please assign the proposal that you sent to me to someone else.

I hope you will compensate me for my time.

Sincerely,
Dr. Owen Brownstone