Swet Columns
July 21, 2009
Self-Publishing a Self-Initiated Translation
A professional non-fiction translator for over 40 years, Fred Uleman, in September 2009, self-published Rethinking the Constitution: An Anthology of Japanese Opinion, a translation of Kodansha’s 2004 Nihon no kenpo: Kokumin shuken no ronten. SWET asked Uleman how he came to translate and publish a book he was not paid to do, and what it involved.
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August 21, 2008
Japan Image Use Conference
by Lynne E. Riggs
On June 23, 2008, the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources held a symposium in Tokyo (International House of Japan) entitled “Japanese Images: Using Them to Support Japan Studies Internationally.” Bringing together librarians, publishers, museum staff, editors, Japanese studies professors, and other interested parties, it was a landmark event in developing good practices... more
February 9, 2008
Subtleties of Scientific Style
Reviewed by Richard Weisburd Review of Matthew Stevens; Thornleigh, NSW, Australia: ScienceScape Editing, 2007. 103 pages. Softcover ISBN0-9578877-2-8. Available online. Softcover US12.00/A$15.00 + postage.
Substantive editing of research papers is a difficult task. The content is complex, technical, and original. The authors are intimately familiar with their own work, but not always aware of the difficulty that readers may have extracting... more
September 26, 2007
The First Five Pages
by Ginny Tapley The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999[K1]. 207 pages. Hardcover. ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9093-7; softcover ISBN-10: 978-0-7432-9090-3.[K2] $13.95.
Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages is, as the subtitle suggests, aimed at writers trying to get their work published. With the advent... more
July 12, 2007
“Ask Aunt Eva” Reissued
by Kay Vreeland
Doreen Simmons has been in Japan since 1973, writing feature articles, editing, acting, recording, and with a sideline as one of the few foreign female Sumo experts, including being a live commentator on NHK’s worldwide satellite service. [See Newsletter No. 71, “A Day in the Life.”] From 1996 to 2003, she kept SWETers on the straight and narrow... more
June 1, 2007
Effective Onscreen Editing: New tools for an old profession
Effective onscreen editing: New tools for an old profession, by Geoff Hart. Pointe-Claire, Quebec: Diaskeuasis Publishing, 2007. 723 pages. Ebook. ISBN 978-0-9783227-0-0. US$20 outside Canada.
Do you use MS Word or other applications to edit documents onscreen and think you know exactly how to do it? After using Geoff Hart’s eBook, based on his column... more