When you hear about copyediting resources, it’s natural to immediately think of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). After all, it’s the most used style guide in the industry. That said, it’s also a dense read—even though it’s essential to know and reference for nearly every project. The good news is that there are plenty of more approachable resources that follow CMOS while being much easier to work through in smaller, more manageable pieces. One of the first resources I used when I purchased CMOS was The Copyeditor’s Handbook, along with its companion workbook. This text was also the primary assigned reading in my Technical Copyediting course at the University of Colorado Denver.…

It’s funny how much things can change between the day you start school and the day you finish. Of course, there are people whose plans work out exactly as they imagined. Others discover a class that makes them reconsider their major. And for many, life circumstances change along the way. So what do you do when things look very different from what you envisioned during your first semester? I went back to school for a career change. During that time, I received several promotions and now work for a completely different company than the one I worked for when I started my degree—and I love it here. My original goal…

I didn’t go back to college because it was the obvious next step. I had already built a career without a degree and could continue along that path (which I am currently). I went back because the idea had been sitting in the back of my mind for years—quietly waiting for the right moment, a time that wasn’t complicated with moving around every few years. By the time I logged back into a college portal, life had already taken me through full-time work, management roles, and more than one cross-country move. When I graduated high school in 2008, the country seemed to drop out from under us. Career advice sounded…