Eye for Editing: The Editor as Teacher

How do you think of yourself in your editing role? Is each document, article, topic, or book by the same author or team of writers an isolated editing task? Does each task seem to start from scratch as if you’d not edited that author’s work before? Or is each subsequent edit you deliver informed by your previous suggestions and comments? Do subsequent documents indicate that the writer “got it the first (or last) time”?

In other words, do you think of yourself as a teacher? This mindset doesn’t lend itself as well to one-time edits for an author you never work with again. But if you edit content for the same writers on an ongoing basis, you are in a teaching role by default. Your textbook is the company or department style guide, as well as whatever published style guide you’ve adopted for grammar and usage.

Both the editor and writer are working from the same textbook, but it often falls to the editor to gently, even repetitively remind the writer what’s in the textbook and how to apply it in practice. So is it the editor/teacher’s fault when the students still don’t seem to “get” the lesson? Obviously, the writer/student has to want to learn from each edit of her content. Let’s face it – writers are typically not as dedicated to the style guide as the editor is. Often, the editor is the maintainer of the department style guide and therefore, has a particular familiarity with it and fondness for its sage guidance.

For the editor’s part, I suggest that your edit comments always point to chapter and verse in the style guide to support the change you’re requesting. That way, the suggestion is not so much coming from you, as from the textbook that you’ve all agreed to follow. If particular items in the style guide seem to be a constant challenge for one or more of your writers, consider offering a brief lunch-n-learn session to um, raise awareness on several points in the style guide. Another idea is to publish a style guide tip-of-the-week through email. Anything to reinforce your edits in a setting that is less personal.

That leads me to the other party in any edit, the author. As I said, the student has to be willing to learn from each edit. Perhaps the problem is not so much in whether the editor considers himself to be a teacher, but whether the writer considers each edit as an opportunity to learn and improve. We are all “set in our ways,” especially those of us who can boast a 20- or 30-year career in writing. But I’m baffled by scenarios like the following: 

  • I make a correction—say, about the difference in usage of “if” and “whether”—and provide the very clear explanation from Chicago Manual of Style. (I couldn’t offer an explanation myself; I just “know” when to use one or the other.)
  • Though the writer challenged my edit at first, the writer then acknowledges the correctness of my edit based on Chicago.
  • But the writer continues to make the same mistake in text and in speech.

The lesson wasn’t really learned. The behavior didn't change. Sigh.

Did I mention that writers are not as dedicated to the style guide as the editor is? So this goes back to the part about the editor providing “repetitive reminders” in her teaching role. I guess that’s what you might call job security.

3 Replies to “Eye for Editing: The Editor as Teacher”

  1. Those who wish to improve, will. They will learn from example, correction, and so forth. But some folks are at a point in their life or career where they don’t want to think about one thing more – not even to improve their work and make it easier. Perhaps they’ll get past those obstacles while they still work at your place – or perhaps not.

  2. Paula, excellent post! A long-time technical writer, I’m just beginning my career as a freelance editor. My first client was a friend who’d written a Bible study. As I edited her work, I realized I was doing more writing coaching than copy-editing or even developmental editing. As an inexperienced writer, my friend needed much guidance on quoting other material, understanding the logic of what she was saying on the page (versus was she thought she was saying), and, yes, organizing the material she had written. To her credit, she was very open to my suggestions, and our friendship remains in tact. So, to answer your question, I think the editor’s role depends on the author’s skill, maturity as a writer, and openness to suggestion.

  3. Good post, Paula. When I was department editor some years ago I used to joke that my main purpose was to work myself out of a job. I meant exactly what you’re saying here: that I hoped the writers would learn from my comments. Some did; some didn’t. I never thought it was any fun to have to mark the same thing over and over again!

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