Behold: innocent proofreader is reading through a nice little document until coming across something strange. What is that thing? It's a surname with two parts with a single letter, then a space and the second part of the name. Both parts are capitalized. I have never encountered such a phenomenon dear reader. Imagine my surprise. So I naturally make a nice little copy of said phenomenon and the fun begins! I send a message to the submitter who replies. Back and forth the messages fly until we've established that the single letter is supposed to be accented. But what sort of accent I ask? Being told how it looks doesn't mean a thing to me since I've always read Braille. I write back. Is it a tilde, a circumflex, an umlaut, an accent grave, or an acute accent? The response comes: the accent is not a tilde, umlaut, circumflex, or a grave accent. It's like the word déja vu. Fortunately for me, I had taken a course in French so I had a pretty good idea of what was wanted. Light goes off in my head and I write back: Is what we're looking for an acute accent? I am requested to show an example of the acute accent. Bingo! I am informed that is the very accent. Now the question arises: is said accent supposed to be for a capital letter or for a small letter. I end up writing again showing an acute accent with a capital and one without. Through much persistence, we have finally settled on the definitive answer: said accent should be capitalized. Sometimes proofreading requires a bit of detective work, especially if you come across a word you've never encountered or something like what I've just mentioned. I know there are those who would rather suffer the torture of a thousand cuts than doing any sort of proofreading. They'd prefer to scan documents which is great for me since I'm a scanophobe (or to be more precise, intimidated by the whole idea of scanning). (I would be willing to give it a try if there was someone there who would show me how to go about it, to know the sorts of settings I should use, and if I had a scanner which could be used with whatever book I might use. (The one I've got would probably do great for a paperback book but not for something larger. (It's a Cannon LIDE-90. (I have no idea how this one rates with submitters, but should like to know.) So I am perfectly contented to let others do the submitting while I do my bit to make sure those files are proofread the best way I know how so the file will be a pleasure to read. (I get to read the file before anyone else does and when I send it up, I can deliver my honest opinion about the perfidy of publishers leaving in typos, the great scan by the submitter, and anything else that needs remarking upon. (I've yet to just send something up without commenting on it.) So all of you who are starting out proofreading, I wish you much success in your endeavor to make the submitter's file look great. As you continue, you'll get more and more proficient, and if you're a deranged perfectionist, then you are the best type of proofreader in my opinion. You will read every single word. You will be particular about how many pages are actually in the file and what text belongs on what page. You'll want everything to look nice, and you will probably be bugged by publishers leaving in errors because it will offend you because you'd love to get rid of it if you were only allowed. You will no doubt leave comments and you will have a sense of accomplishment that the file is finished, sent up, and approved. So here is to deranged perfectionists of every stripe, whether they are submitters, proofreaders or those who could do both scanning and proofreading. Regards, Kim Friedman. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.