ELLIPSIS EDITING

The Astronomy Revolution: 400 Years of Exploring the Cosmos–CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2011

I recently served as editor-in-chief for The Astronomy Revolution: 400 Years of Exploring the Cosmos, based on a three-day meeting in Beijing in October 2008. The book includes 24 chapters written by the participating speakers and invited others. I was completely unprepared for the experience and did not have the staff to manage the many months of correspondence with the publisher, the authors, and the two other volume editors. Ellipsis handled all the things with which I had no experience, leaving me to worry about the science content. The editing work they did was careful and superb, well beyond what I expected to be needed or accomplished. Ellipsis took care of many details, always seeking my advice even when their judgment would have been trusted and right. They facilitated the Chinese edition and took care of all permissions and rights issues with a care and concern that I did not really appreciate until it was all over. Ellipsis is a completely reliable firm with excellent staff. I am very grateful for their work on our volume. – Donald York, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The University of Chicago

Multi-Author Science Book:

Deep Beauty: Understanding the Quantum World through Mathematical Innovation–Cambridge University Press, 2011 (Also organized conference in Princeton, 2007)

In 2007, I undertook a major meeting and editorial project, Deep Beauty: Understanding the Quantum World, and I worked together with the staff of Ellipsis Enterprises—Pam Contractor and Rob Schluth. My collaboration with Ellipsis allowed me to focus completely on academic/content issues, while Ellipsis saw to all administrative, communications, and editorial matters and details, whether it was organizing the conference, distributing instructions to the participants and authors, submitting the book proposal, editing the book, or working with the publisher—even designing the cover art. Basically, teaming up with Ellipsis released me from logistical and management cares and worries and allowed me to concentrate my efforts on what I do best. – Hans Halvorson, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University

Multiple Science Symposia and Books:

I have worked over some years with Pam Contractor and Ellipsis for a number of multiply-authored symposium volumes, which is often a project equivalent to herding cats. In addition to organizing many of the symposia, she wrote the book proposals; issued author instructions; negotiated the publishing contracts; served as the liaison between the volume editors, authors, and publisher; and oversaw the content-structuring and production processes. She also managed all the details, including copyediting, fixing the references, procuring illustrations and permissions, making sure the indices made sense, and so on. It’s a fantastic juggling act with a huge number of things to keep track of, which she handles very well. – Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Multiple Science Symposia and Books:

I VERY strongly recommend Ellipsis. We completed many challenging and complicated projects together in the US and overseas over more than a decade. Ellipsis’s dedicated, high quality of work was a vital key to the success of many of my most significant initiatives. The staff superbly managed lengthy and complicated efforts involving large numbers of VIP participants, most remarkably including 20 Nobel laureates for a major conference honoring the inventor of the maser/laser—and many of them contributed to the related book! The staff is gifted and wonderful. – Charles Harper, Vision-Five.com

Science Interview Transcription: 

Scientist Who Helped Design the H-Bomb Reflects on His Work–American Institute of Physics (AIP) Oral History Interviews

You did a fantastic job of getting the names correct and finding and footnoting relevant references. Good work! – Kenneth W. Ford, Former Executive Director & CEO of AIP*

*Also see Building the H Bomb: A Personal History by Kenneth W. Ford and hear an audio interview.