Editor’s Responsibility

I am just beginning my journey as an editor. Since starting this course, I have learned a lot about what an editor does and doesn’t do and just how involved an editing project is. When an author presents something for edit, it is the editor’s responsibility to provide the best quality edit within the constraints placed by the author or commissioning body. No more, no less.

An editor is not the author and must remain cognizant of this fact. The editor’s job is solely to provide feedback to the author in order to improve the quality of the piece being edited. This is imperative to reach the author’s intended audience. With this in mind, the article Shibboleths and White Shoes: 5 Lessons for Editors by Dr. Kim Sydow-Campbell, provides five things that an editor must keep in mind. All are important lessons, but two of the five stuck with me; editors must continue to improve their craft and no editor can ever stop looking things up. Language conventions change over time and an editor, in order to remain highly proficient, must continue to learn new techniques and tools as they come along. Likewise, with changing language conventions, an editor must always look up things of which they are unsure. This helps them grow as an editor and improve the quality of the document they are editing. This is synonymous with being a life-long learner.

Microsoft Word is a Powerful Tool

Unless a person is engaged in editing, experience with Microsoft (MS) Word is limited strictly to word processing. Until I took this class that was my perception. I always envisioned an editor as a person with a red pen or pencil and several paper copies of works to edit for grammar and mechanics. Welcome to the digital age! Modern editors have a process for different levels of edit and a tool used for editing is MS Word. Though the demonstration video was for MS Word 2016 on a Mac computer, I figured out how to apply the same skills with MS Word 2019 on Windows. I can see just how using tracked changes, find and replace, and markup tools can help the editor identify changes that need to be made for spelling and grammar. No typo is safe now! The ability to add comments with suggestions for the author to consider for content and structure of a document provides context for both the author and the editor. There is mostly clear communication established quickly rather than the old school snail mail or meeting in the office approach. There are other tools for editing that I haven’t yet explored but I plan to. For right now using the editing features in MS Word works for my needs.

Copyediting is a Process

When performing a copyedit of a document, having a clear plan of how to efficiently edit a document is essential. Just jumping in and looking for changes is not efficient and will cost valuable time when faced against a tight deadline. Using the MS Word editing features will help with this but only will go so far. Before beginning an editing project an editor must determine a plan of attack to gain the most bang for the buck. Otherwise, the credibility of the editor will diminish as will the number of clients employing the editor’s services.

Teamwork

Based on previous experiences, I was nervous about the group comprehensive edit project. After a few meetings and guidance from Dr. Campbell (aka Dr. Kim), I’m confident that my team member will help me to produce a high-quality edit for our project. I look forward to seeing the finished product of our work. In all fields of technical communication, teamwork is critical.

Looking Forward

As the end of the first 8-week term nears, I’m starting to feel the pressure associated with the end of a course. I have a lot of work still to do and a lot of things still to learn. I am excited and anxious, but I know that I’m on the right path. After the end of the term, I will reflect on the lessons learned from the first 8 weeks of my journey and write down lessons learned to carry into my future endeavors. Editors must continue to improve their craft as do all technical communicators. Remembering lessons learned is a great way to do just that.