Who gets the brickbats for turning out bad copy that is full of jarring syntax errors and spelling mistakes? The editor, of course. After all, it is his job to correct the big jarring mistakes as well as the small niggling and oft times missed-by-the-general-public mistakes.
So what are the attributes of a perfect editor, who makes not a single mistake and can churn out flawless text that not only informs or entertains the reader but does full justice to the price that the reader is buying to read the said material, be it a newspaper or a novel. In fact, if it is something like a novel or a report, the reader will dread coming back to it because of the ugly mistakes that have been left there by the editor.
Here are five characteristics or traits of a full fledged professional, no nonsense editor.
Knowledge of subject
The editor is supposed to be a person who has been in the business for quite some time and has an excellent, not just fair, knowledge of the subject. Even if he is an authority on the subject, he may or may not be an editor par excellence. The reason for it being that, with due respect to the great orators, although he or she may know each and everything in their minds and their presentations to the viewing public maybe flawless, when it comes to the written word, it is not an easy task to capture and relay that feeling to the reader. That is because when a person is speaking, he or she has to just use the right tonality and body language. However, when you are writing, you have to have a superlative grasp of the subject and capture everything that is said in your transcript in the case of the transcription industry. When it comes to being an editor in a publishing company, etc, although the thumb rule is the same, it could be a little different since the editor doesn’t have to actually face the author.
Command over language
If it were not for MS Word, a lot of editors can easily overlook the mistakes that I had deliberately committed in the very first sentences of this article. It may also be explained with the help of two sciences, Human Anatomy and Psychology. The human eye has a blind spot which comes into play when you are reading the work of someone you know and trust. You blindly accept whatever is written and don’t bat an eyelid when a mistake is seen committed. The reason could be that although you may not know that person personally, but the publication house that has employed him/her maybe well reputed in the market. Or it could be that a newspaper gives back to me more than I have spent buying it. However, that same newspaper could result in a headache everyday for a person who has a great command over language and cannot bear to read the mistakes committed nearly on a daily basis. It will surely lead to termination of subscription of that newspaper or magazine subscription.
A keen eye for flushing out mistakes
An editor is the second line of attack for a publishing house after their writers. When an author finishes his novel, he submits the manuscript to a publishing house which may run it over to an editor, albeit after a wait of ‘n’ number of days, depending on the schedule that they have. When an editor gets the read of the novel, he or she has to have a keen eye so that they can flush out not just the obvious mistakes but also some things that sometimes escape the attention on the first go, or maybe the author didn’t give it a good second read and self edit. It is the editor who gets to do the ‘dirty’ job of cleaning the mess. That mess could be of a few words in an entire novel or an entire novel filled with glaring mistakes.
An ability to take criticism and wry looks from others
Especially in the business transcription industry, there is a workflow wherein the initial audio is listened to by a transcriber who transcribes the contents onto a word document and forwards it to the next level, the editor. It is the job of this editor to clean all the mistakes that the transcriber may have committed, the various indiscernible or inaudible and phonetics markings that may have been incorporated in the file, either genuinely or carelessly or otherwise. There are editors in that industry who are literally feared on the floor since they mince no words when giving the transcribers a piece of their mind, if the file is not good in spite of the audio being good.
Depending on company policy or maybe the client or other factors, the file maybe processed by just a single editor who will edit the file and submit to the client or to the second level editor, who gets to read a hopefully cleaner file since it has come to him or her after being edited by the first level editors. If the first level editor has overlooked mistakes, then the second level editor will spend more time on the given file. Hence, the first level editor has to have the ability to take criticism from his seniors and the wry looks from his juniors.
A Devil may care attitude
Maybe that is what leads to a devil may care attitude of many of the good editors in the market. They know that they can deliver the goods anytime of the day. They are not afraid to give their opinion to the boss too, if need be. However, there is a flip side to this kind of a reputation. An editor should also be a kind of a mentor to his writers or transcribers, as the case maybe. If the editor is always ranting and raving about everyone; if he/she has an attitude problem and is a loner on breaks, then it is a sure shot recipe for a breakdown or a professional burnout.
To counter this, the editor, or for that matter anybody, should forget work when they are on breaks. Another way to lessen the pain is to be a mentor to the same transcribers or writers to whom you have given a piece of your mind the hard way. In fact, you should even champion their cause when they are having a problem in the organization. This is a sure-as-death recipe for you to get quality work done by them in the future.
Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com).
Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in June, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
Chillibreeze offers Indian writers the opportunity to work on customer projects. We are also India’s biggest writer network and a one-stop shop for Indian writers and editors. The writers’ section on Chillibreeze offers freelance writers and editors a variety of tools to advance their careers. Resources for writers include:
