ACES: The Society for Editing

ACES: The Society for Editing is a professional association of international scope for copy editors who work on every kind of content, including newspapers, magazines, websites, books, scholarly journals, and corporate communications.

As of 2019, the group offered:

• an annual meeting, the ACES conference
• a member directory
• a newsletter
• scholarships (via the affiliated ACES Education Fund)
• regional workshops
• a website that offers educational materials, news, job listings, and an editors-for-hire board

ACES was formerly known as — and, as of 2018, is still legally incorporated as — the American Copy Editors Society, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Executive committee[]

ACES was founded in 1997, by Pam Robinson, who also served as its first president, and . Its inception followed work of ASNE (American Society of News Editors; at the time, the American Society of Newspaper Editors) and meetings by copy editors in North Carolina and South Carolina.^[1] It is currently led by society president Sara Ziegler^[2][3] of FiveThirtyEight. John McIntyre of The Baltimore Sun was its second president. Chris Wienandt of the Dallas Morning News was its third president. Teresa Schmedding of the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., was its fourth president.

It has an executive committee of 13 people, of whom four are officers: the president, vice president, secretary and treasurer.^[2] Any full member is eligible for elections. Annual membership is $75 for full members and $40 for students.

In 2008, the board approved changes that allowed copy editors working outside traditional journalism organizations full membership with voting rights. As of March 2019, the society had 3,172 members.

Awards[]

The society also gives out two awards for copy editing, named after its founders: the Robinson Prize, which is awarded yearly to an outstanding editor, and the Glamann Award, which honors contributions to the craft.

Conferences[]

The ACES national conference features the fundamentals of the craft and a primer for what's to come. Each year, editors from all fields come together for three days of workshops, panel discussions and networking. Attendees include editors for newspapers, magazines, websites, trade publications, book publishers, nonprofit agencies and corporations, as well as students, journalism professors, consultants and freelancers.

The idea that led to the creation of ACES was nurtured during a series of three conferences about copy editing sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1995 and 1996.

When ACES was chartered in the spring of 1997, the top priority of the society's founders was to conduct their own national gathering. Four months later, the first ACES national conference took place at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

References[]