Real-Life Math -- Solution
You are a book editor for an author that is writing about Irish
history. She is a prolific writer. You need to be careful to keep the word,
page and chapter count under control. This is what you calculate:
1.
You now have 25 chapters of the book, each chapter containing 15 pages. If
each page has 200 words of text, what is the word count so far?
15
pages x 200 words = 3,000 words
25 chapters x 3,000 words = 75,000 words
So
far, Lauren's book is 75,000 words.
2. If you want
each chapter to contain 15 pages, how many chapters will you create from the
new text Lauren has sent, after you have revised and edited it? Remember:
You revised the text so that it has 45,000 words.
Each
chapter contains 15 pages.
You calculated earlier that each page has 200
words of text.
From this, you figured that each chapter has 3,000 words:
15
pages x 200 words = 3,000 words
Chapter count:
45,000
words / 3,000 words per chapter = 15
The newly edited section
will have 15 chapters.
Even though Florida-based freelance
book editor Laurie Rosin doesn't work on math-related textbooks, she still
says that math matters in this line of work. Knowing numbers
comes in handy, especially if you're a freelance book editor. Not only do
you need to be able to figure out word count and page count, but you need
to deal with the financial side of running your own business.
"It's
important to me because I have to calculate what I'm going to charge, and
I have to keep my own ledgers," says Rosin.