Why Edit?

Because it matters

(An excerpt from Stet Again!)

Where do I start? Perhaps with narrow escapes ... like the editor who correctly changed "lowering" (the drinking age) to "raising" it in a document meant for national distribution, or the editor who noticed that the signature line for a letter signed by James Madison should not have read 1924. Or, more to the point, perhaps with horror stories ... like the editor who did not notice that John Adams was referred to as the third president of the United States in a letter signed by Prince Charles and Princess Diana. This letter appeared a few years ago in the Washington Post in conjunction with the Treasure Houses of Britain exhibit, and the press had a field day.

In each case, someone merely reading these documents for typos would not have caught the error — nor would the ubiquitous spell checker. Someone's brain had to be engaged; someone had to be reading with a critical eye; someone had to be processing the information. That someone is often an editor.

Who or what is an editor? Ideally, someone with an eye for detail who checks spelling, grammar, consistency, and conformity to style. On a deeper level, someone who clarifies the author's meaning but leaves the author's voice intact; someone who acts as the reader's advocate and points out where ideas are muddled, logic is flawed, or the argument bogs down in unnecessary detail or endless repetition. Every piece of writing can benefit from an edit.

For many writers, an editor is simply the enemy who takes a piece of perfectly adequate writing and mucks it up. Undoubtedly, some writers have been victims of the meat-ax school of editing: There are as many bad editors out there as there are bad writers, and it takes only a few bad experiences to sour writers on editing and editors forever. But the fact of the matter is that writers tend to be concerned with content and editors with its expression; writers focus primarily on meaning and editors on form. Together they can produce a document that says what it means to say clearly to its intended audience. Often a writer is so close to the subject matter that he or she thinks a sentence or phrase will be crystal clear when in fact it will not. Readers depend totally on the written word; no body language or inflection guides them as in conversation.

Why edit? Because the little things you think that no one will notice or care about can come back to haunt you. Because an editor just might save you from looking foolish in print.

—Mary Stoughton

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