Your Own Words Book

A professor assigned this book to my copyediting class in an attempt to give us an interesting read. I'll admit the beginning of the book was great. In fact, the whole class preferred this far more than our workbook - though, considering how mind-numbingly boring it was, that's hardly a compliment. Most find the subject of copyediting very dull, including myself. But that first chapter just made it sound so exciting. Unfortunately, it slid downhill from there.
Wallraff tries sprucing things up with personal stories. Initially, I both learned from and was entertained by those examples. But she had waaay too many. I could have done with one or two per tidbit of knowledge. It got to the point where most of the chapter detailed her little anecdotes over the actual material. That would have been fine, if she really walked me through the process. Instead, she just glossed over it and I started tuning out as I read.
In the end, the professor admitted defeat and stopped assigning us the reading after the fourth or so chapter. I think the bottom line is that copyediting is extremely boring. This isn't an impulse buy sort of book. It's like talking about the best ways to dry your nail polish. Is it useful? Well, a bit. She did go over some new information for me. But good luck reading the whole thing. While workbooks are just as boring, at least the activities engage the readers a bit.

A fellow classmate and reviewer summed it up perfectly: "The only thing more boring than reading the dictionary may be reading about someone critiquing a dictionary."