32  Guiding principles for copyediting

How much of the author’s original stylistic choices should a copyeditor keep? Here are some guiding principles.

Semantics first!. In general, only keep meaningful features. We typeset content first, not look. We preserve emphasis, but we don’t preserve an author’s choice of a particular emphasis style (italics vs small caps vs bold). We preserve numbered list, but we don’t preserve an author’s choice of specific numbering style (arab numbers, roman numbers, letters). If authors object, they need to explain why their idiosyncratic notation choices are needed (maybe in the paper itself, at least to us).

Efficiency. The semantics first principle is tempered by efficiency considerations. Changing an author’s square brackets to round ones is easy. Changing their choice of LaTeX commands can be error-prone. Redoing their figures to use the journal’s font can be time-consuming. If an author’s cohice is too costly for us to change and doesn’t heart readability and comprehension, we let it pass.

Egos. The principle is also tempered by social considerations. If adopting our style proves particulary difficult with an author, causing back-and-forth that may delay publication, we can cave in. Their paper, their problem, after all.

Bibliography. Dialectica’s policy with respect to the bibliography has been to enforce our preferences irrespective of efficiency or author’s egos. For instance, we require that they cite from originals rather than reprints (leading to back and forth as they source and check the original), that they cite the latest edition of a book, or that they provide more specific page ranges.