The Editor's Toolbox

Between AP stylebook, Rooney's "Copy Editing for Professionals" and "The Editor's Toolbox," you, as a journalist, will have just about everything you need.As a professional communicator who needs to act periodically as an editor, I believe the essentials taught by Ryan should be mandatory in any journalism class.Ryan explains editors must know the basics of spelling, grammar, etc. But he also discusses firmly the need and process of fact checking, layout issues, map reading and plenty of other oft-ignored matters of good journalism.Editors, future editors and jouurnalism professors need to add this tool to their collection of resource books.I fully recommend "The Editor's Toolbox."Anthony Trendl

Mostly a reference guide and textbook for journalists, the Editor's Toolbox has some interest for the General Reader who is curious about how his newspaper is created. The reporting and editing processes are covered in some detail, with particular attention to language pitfalls and necessary skills. Visual journalism is well illustrated. This is a lively and obviously highly useful work, which looks to be especially handy for the student. The General Reader might wish for more attention to have been paid to the embarrassingly obvious biases which have crept into mainstream journalism via loaded language and selective attention. (The "Rating Stars" are a requirement. This reviewer disavows "stars".)