Elang 350 personal response paper final

Nicole Terry 6/19/17 What Makes an Editor Great I have been copyediting for Cedar Fort Publishing and Media since May 2017. In my short time as a copyediting intern, I have learned a lot about what is involved in copyediting and what makes a great editor. Qualities of a great editor can be seen in his or her attention to a manuscript, interactions with and respect for the author, and understanding of editing selfcontrol.

First, a great editor must be able to identify problems in a manuscript. Whether the problem is in the structure, the spelling, or another grammatical subset of the author’s writing, the editor needs to know where the issue is. If I were unaware that innocuous is spelled with two n’s or that whom is an object case pronoun, my job as an editor would be short-lived, and my failure to recognize an error would be published for all to see. Most of the time, I enjoy finding problems in a manuscript. This is something I’ve always naturally done, even when my understanding of English was not as deep as it is now.

After identifying problems in a manuscript, the editor also needs to be able to solve the problems. Luckily, because the English language is so complex, I am not expected to know everything; I use the internet and The Chicago Manual of Style many times every day to fix the errors that I am even the tiniest bit unsure of how to fix. I usually enjoy this extensive and important part of being an editor. Fixing mistakes in manuscripts matches my personality because I am willing to do the necessary work to solve problems in editing. I am not willing to risk creating a new mistake, so the time I spend looking up rules, definitions, and guidelines is time well spent.

A great editor makes changes for a reason. When I change a manuscript, it is important for me to make sure that I can “justify editing decisions” with evidence from Chicago or another

source that backs up the change I made; “know[ing] that [I] know [my] sources” helps the author see that the changes I make are valid (Saller, 47). From my small amount of experience, I’ve learned that authors will not often doubt that my edits are wrong, but I want to be prepared in case I do find myself interacting with a defensive author who does need to know that the change I made is one that will improve the manuscript. Having solid evidence is important to me. I’ve always been the kind of person that will reread texts multiple times or reword emails until I’m sure that there are no errors. I never want to be wrong or mess my own work up, so I certainly do not want to do that to someone else’s work.

In addition to finding solutions that work, an editor should be able to pick solutions that fit best with the author’s voice and writing style. I do not enjoy this part of editing as much as I enjoy other parts, but I recognize its importance. The author still needs to sound like the author and his or her work should flow nicely. If I’ve made changes that make the author sound like me, those changes might pull the reader out of the text. However, because I am a writer as well as an editor, and I find creative writing enjoyable, I have a strong voice myself and often want to make more changes than are necessary. I refrain, though, and let the author’s voice shine.

When something can be made better, but isn’t necessarily wrong grammatically, an editor should make suggestions to the author and get his or her input about the change. This is important to remember, because the author “has two kinds of expertise that [the editor] may not: she knows her subject, and she probably knows her reader” (Saller, 27). I enjoy making suggestions especially when I do not know an author well; it makes me look like a person who just wants to help, rather than a person who wants to mark the author’s whole manuscript in red.

Offering suggestions matches my personality well because I am not a forceful person—I like to give people options and allow them to think about what they want.

The editor should think of the author he or she is working with as a teammate. I enjoy working with people, and I easily recognize that others have strengths that I do not have, and that I have strengths that others do not have. The author and editor need each other to create the best work they possibly can. Along with this, the editor also needs to have the desire to make the author look great. I never want to make someone else look inferior, and I am putting time and work into editing the manuscript as well. I want it to the best that it can be because it reflects on me as well. If the author looks bad, the whole team looks bad.

Although editing is usually thought of as correcting another person’s writing, a great editor understands that it is important to point out strengths in the author’s writing along with the weaknesses. An editor whose work leaves the author feeling embarrassed or disappointed about his or her manuscript or writing skills is not an editor that authors want to work with. I enjoy finding and commenting on authors’ strengths, but this was difficult for me at first. I do recognize the author’s strengths in every piece of writing I read, but I generally do not think to compliment them. I wrongfully assume the author will know that the parts I didn’t touch are parts that I thought were good. This is not always true. The workshops in my editing and writing classes over the past two years have taught me that criticism is helpful, but can be hard to hear; we all need a boost of confidence. Now I feel much better about sending an edited manuscript back to the author.

One of the parts of editing that I’ve found to the be most important is knowing when to stop. An author does not want to get a bright red, overcorrected manuscript back. If something is wrong, it should be fixed, but if something is simply not written how I would write it, it should usually be left alone. I make suggestions for things that I strongly believe the author should rethink, and I correct spelling and grammar mistakes—but that is all that I feel entirely

comfortable doing as an editor. I enjoy this because it’s nice to focus mostly on the work that really needs to be done; otherwise I’d be rewriting entire manuscripts to fit my preferences.

Editors must have the ability to focus on one thing for hours at a time, because a huge part of editing involves staring at a screen, reading one manuscript in silence. A good editor reads “v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y slowly—slowly enough to scrutinize each comma” (Einsohn, 17). I enjoy this because I have a very introverted, reserved personality; I have always preferred sitting and doing just one thing for an extended period of time to running around and switching tasks constantly. I recently copyedited a young adult novel as an assignment at my internship. On day one, I felt confident and ready for the challenge, but I mistakenly thought I would spend merely two or three days on the assignment. I spent six days—approximately thirty hours—editing that novel. I loved every minute of the process, but my expectations were unreasonable.

Finally, a great editor must be willing to constantly learn. I enjoy learning about things I am interested in and gaining knowledge that I can see myself using in the future, so I like this part of editing. I have learned more at my internship than I learned in an entire semester of editing classes. Real-world experience makes it easier to see what is really required of great editors and what is involved in the editing process. I did not fully realize what was important for me to learn until I had to learn it.

Good editing requires a lot of time and work, attention to detail, and willingness to work with the author. My experiences in my editing classes and at my copyediting internship have helped me see the importance of editors. I have learned to recognize the strengths I have and the weaknesses I need to work on improving, and I have learned that the quality of an editor’s work has a lot to do with his or her understanding of what makes an editor great.

Works Cited Einsohn, Amy. 2000. The Copyeditor’s Handbook. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Saller, Carol F. 2009. The Subversive Copy Editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.