posted at
08:58 PM
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Consider the task of just reading a page in a technical book. You read a bit, and you might stop and cogitate as you go. If you're not real clear on what you're reading, you might go back and re-read what you've read, or perhaps you push forward with the hope that it will become clear ar you proceed. This is deliberative reading, and will usually not be quick.
Now consider how the editor reads it. As the editor is reading, they are taking in the text and trying to understand what it says. But at another level, they're constantly comparing what's in front of them with a mental image of how they think it should be. It's a kind of multitasking, reading the actual text and a sort of platonic ideal at the same time.
 Of course, at any point where the two "texts" diverge, the editor stops and suggests a fix. They then have to back up and re-read the revised bit, now with altered text being compared against the ideal.
Depending on what level of editing is going on, the scope of the mental model varies. When doing a first ("developmental") edit on a draft, the scope is, effectively, the whole article or paper or even book. As the editor reads, for every bit of text the editor is is asking whether it ...- makes sense.
- is saying it (technically) right. (Obviously, this varies by situation, and tech reviewers are more responsible for the correctness of the content.)
- is saying everything that needs to be said, but not saying too much.
- is saying it in the right order. Does this text rely on information that doesn't appear till later?
- is saying it in the right place. Is the text more suitable in a different section or chapter? Does it belong in the manuscript at all?
 And so on. After the shape of the manuscript is more-or-less in place, the editor (or another) reads again for a language ("copy") edit. The scope of the mental model in this case is more limited, including paragraphs and sentences rather than the whole book. But the process is essentially the same -- reading both for comprehension and to run the text against the mental model of how it should sound.
For the most part, the ultimate readers take the text as a given. If they're having difficulties, they're might blame themselves or they might deem that the text is no good.
The editor, in contrast, does not take the text as a given. If they run into difficulties -- and editors always run into difficulties -- it's their job to figure out how to resolve those difficulties.
It can be hard work, depending on the source text. Even if I'm reading a draft that's very well written, I'm still constantly monitoring it for potential problems. As John McIntyre puts it: We copy editors are the skeptics, the nay-sayers, the fault-finders. We look at a text expecting to find it defective and are seldom disappointed. With a manuscript that needs a lot of work, the effort of reading, monitoring, fixing, and re-reading can be exhausting. It's not always a fun job, this editing business.
And as many editors will confirm, it gets to be hard to turn off that monitor. Even when you're reading for fun, the editor persona is in the background, throwing out little objections or suggestions for how this text could be improved. As Judith Tarutz says simply, "An unfortunate side effect of editing is that you'll find it difficult to simply read ever again." At a career fair in high school once, I heard a physicist say that that when you go to the beach, you don't see the roaring surf, you see waveforms. Thus it is with editors, who are constantly x-raying text.
Anyway, if you meet an editor and they seem distracted or cranky, now you know why. They've been, alas, reading.
[categories]
editing
[tags]
editors
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