Attention to Detail: A Tribute to Editing

I found this at The Guardian Unlimited -- the obituary of a proofreader taught by a poet, no less!

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Eleanor Gould Packard

NEW YORK (AP) - Eleanor Gould Packard, who was known for her
proofreading, copyediting and probing of the language of thousands of
articles in The New Yorker, died Sunday at age 87, her daughter Susan
Hathaway Packard told The New York Times.

Though she was not known by a particular title at the magazine, she was
noted for her intricate attention to vocabulary, syntax, grammar, flow
and even punctuation of many nonfiction writers who have contributed to
including E.B. White, Roger Angell, and Wolcott Gibbs.

Born Eleanor Gould in 1917 in Newark, N.Y., she graduated summa cum
laude from Oberlin College in Ohio and came to New York after being
taught editing by the New Jersey poet Aline Kilmer. In 1945, she joined
The New Yorker's staff and a year later married her colleague Frederick
A. Packard.

She remained at the magazine for 54 years before retiring after a
stroke, and became known for her attention to detail and care for the
text. Many there believe she is responsible for the style of The New
Yorker's prose.

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Googling Eleanor Gould Packard led me to another interesting link: She had strong views on the annoyance of indirection in newspaper articles. Without ever formulating this to myself, I am addicted to those fact frames that give you the background.

BTW, Deborah Garrison, who is quoted in the indirection piece, is an excellent poet as well as a colleague of the late Eleanor Gould Packard.