Certification Study Guide www.bels.org Program Goal and Objectives ............
Certification Study Guide www.bels.org Program Goal and Objectives ................................................................. 3 Registration and Fee ............................................................................... 4 Cancellation of Registration .................................................................... 4 The Certification Examination ................................................................. 5 The Kinds of Editing Tested ....................................................... 5 The Test and Test Scoring .......................................................... 6 The Topics Tested ....................................................................... 7 Sample Test Questions ........................................................................... 9 Answers and Explanations .................................................................... 20 Test-Taking Hints ................................................................................... 27 Preparation for the Examination ............................................................ 28 Examination Procedure ......................................................................... 30 Accommodations for Registrants with Disabilities .................................. 31 Appealing a Failing Score ...................................................................... 31 A Final Word .......................................................................................... 32 Contents Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 3 Program Goal and Objectives The goal of the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences is to promote excellence in manuscript editing in the life sciences. To accomplish this goal, the Board has three objectives: • To establish a standard of proficiency for editing in the life sciences. • To provide qualified manuscript editors in the life sciences a way to demonstrate their editorial proficiency. • To provide employers and clients of manuscript editors in the life sciences a way to identify proficient editors. To meet these objectives, the Board has instituted a program for testing and evaluating editorial proficiency at two levels. An editor can be certified at the first level by taking and passing a certification examination and at the second, or diplomate, level by submitting a portfolio of edited work. This booklet is a guide to the certification examination. A guide to the diplomate program is available to editors who have passed the certification examination. For the purposes of certification, a manuscript editor is defined as an editor who is concerned both with the form and with the intellectual content of a manuscript. A manuscript editor’s responsibilities include not only such matters as grammar, punctuation, and syntax but also logic, organization, consistency, and coherent development of the message. Program Goal and Objectives Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 4 Certification Study Guide Registration and Fee You have been accepted into candidacy and are now eligible to sit for a BELS certification examination. With this study guide, you have received a registration form and a schedule of examinations. To sit for an examination, you must return the form with the examination fee of $250 (US currency) to the Board before the published deadline for the examination that you choose. (The fee is $200 if you have already taken the examination without passing during this same period of candidacy.) You remain eligible to sit for examinations for 2 years from the date of your acceptance into candidacy, and during that period, you may take the examination as often as you wish until you pass it. If by the end of that time you have not passed, you may renew your candidacy for 1 year by paying a $50 renewal fee. When you submit the fee and the registration form indicating your preferred date for examination, you will be registered for the examination and sent your ticket of admission to the test site. Cancellation of Registration Registration for each examination closes 3 weeks before the examination. If you decide not to pursue certification and notify the Board no later than 2 weeks before the date of the selected examination, $50 of the fee will be refunded; $25 will be refunded if you notify the Board no later than 1 week before the examination. If you fail to notify the Board and do not sit for the exam, you will forfeit the whole fee. Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 5 The Examination The Certification Examination The certification examination tests the knowledge necessary to edit manuscripts in the life sciences. In particular, it focuses on language and substantive editing and, to a lesser extent, on editing for technical style, or copyediting. Language editing addresses the expression of ideas in clear, fluent, concise language that conforms to the conventions of standard American English (such as correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling). Substantive editing addresses the effective development and emphasis of ideas, as well as the coherence, consistency, and completeness of information in the text and in tables and figures. The Kinds of Editing Tested The distinctions among levels of editing are still the subject of debate. What is not debatable is that correct spelling, grammar, and syntax must concern every editor, and these are part of the certification examination. But the examination tests much more. It tests the ability to solve grammatical and syntactic problems in technically dense passages. It tests knowledge of metric units of measure, mathematical operations, author–editor interactions, publishing conventions, construction and interpretation of tables and graphs, and logical order in paragraphs. Some style problems that typically are addressed by copyeditors are covered in the examination, but the test does not focus on copyediting skills. The ability to edit copy to conform to a journal’s or publisher’s style, to edit copy for a compositor, and to edit copy for routine errors in spelling, grammar, and syntax will not be sufficient to enable a candidate to pass this examination. Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 6 Certification Study Guide Examples of the kinds of questions that appear in the certification ex amination are provided in this booklet. Use them to judge whether you are ready to take the examination. The Test and Test Scoring You will be evaluated on the basis of your performance on a multiple- choice test of about 100 questions. Instructions take approximately 15 minutes, and the test lasts 2 hours and 45 minutes. The questions vary in difficulty. Roughly half are designed to be moderately difficult; the other half are divided between easy and hard. Correct answers to ques tions of different degrees of difficulty are awarded different numbers of points, and the examination is graded on a pass–fail basis. Because the questions are weighted for difficulty, there is no way to state the number of correct answers needed to pass. There is no scoring penalty for incorrect answers. Note that because of its multiple-choice format, the examination does not require you to edit substantively or reorganize material as you would in a manuscript. However, there are questions that test skill in handling substantive matters, such as organization and logic. Further more, although the test does not require mathematical or statistical expertise, it does contain questions involving the correct presentation of such material. Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 7 The Examination The Topics Tested Specifically, the examination tests proficiency in the following: Grammar: use of language according to grammatical norms, for example, voice and tense of verbs, singular and plural of nouns, cases of pronouns; placement and appropriate use of adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, clauses, and phrases. Punctuation: proper use and placement of punctuation marks. Mechanics: appropriate use of, for example, capitals, italics, lists, abbreviations, and acronyms; recognition of misspellings. Usage and diction: appropriate word choice to ensure accuracy and clarity; recognition of problems with jargon, nominalization, redundancy, vogue words, and acceptable scientific terminology; knowledge of standards of proper usage. Syntax: recognition of correct sentence structure; ability to correct faulty structure to ensure brevity and clarity. Organization: recognition of logical sentence order. Internal consistency: recognition of consistency in form, usage, and logic; ability to correct inconsistencies. Numbers: knowledge of appropriate, accurate, and consistent presentation of numerical values in text; recognition of mathematical accuracy; recognition of standard forms of mathematical presentation. Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 8 Certification Study Guide Bibliographic references: recognition of incompleteness, inconsistency, or inaccuracy of bibliographic references; recognition of adherence to a model. Tables and illustrations: knowledge of principles of graphic presenta tion of data, for example, appropriate use of graphic formats; terminology for parts of tables and figures; requirements for legends, captions, notes, and credit lines. Units of measure and scientific terms: appropriate use of common sci entific terms; choice of appropriate units of measure; ability to judge the relative accuracy of data as presented in a passage; consistency in use of terms and units. (You will not be asked to convert to SI units.) Publishing requirements: adherence to a journal’s or publisher’s instructions, for example, formatting references, using headings and sub headings, and preparing tables and figures. (Knowledge of a particular style is not tested.) Traditional principles and ethics of scientific inquiry, writing, and publishing: fair use of copyrighted material; permissions, credits, and acknowledgments; issues of multiple authorship; ethical principles and procedures in animal and human experimentation. Board of Editors in the Life Sciences 9 Sample Test Questions Sample Test Questions The following sample test questions will give you an idea of what to expect on the certification examination. Answer all the questions first and then check your answers against those given in the section that follows. The answers include explanations of the reasoning behind the correct choices. Paragraph for Questions 1 and 2 Perhaps the most dramatic natural factor effecting budworm populations is weather. Several investigators have found that periods of warm, dry weather have preceded major outbreaks. Weather may also cause short-term reduction in populations. Unreasonable fall or uploads/Science et Technologie/ bels-study-guide.pdf
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