Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete piece of work. ^[1]

Contents

• Scholarly books and journals
• Editing in the 21st century
• Visual editing
• Self-Editing
• Technical editing
• Editing services
• See also
• References
• Further reading
• External links

The editing process often begins with the author's idea for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration between the author and the editor as the work is created. Editing can involve creative skills, human relations and a precise set of methods. ^{[2] [3]} Practicing editing can be a way to reduce language error in future literature works. ^[4]

There are various editorial positions in publishing. Typically, one finds editorial assistants reporting to the senior-level editorial staff and directors who report to senior executive editors. Senior executive editors are responsible for developing a product for its final release. The smaller the publication, the more these roles overlap.

The top editor at many publications may be known as the chief editor, executive editor, or simply the editor. A frequent and highly regarded contributor to a magazine may acquire the title of editor-at-large or contributing editor. Mid-level newspaper editors often manage or help to manage sections, such as business, sports and features. In U.S. newspapers, the level below the top editor is usually the managing editor.

In the book publishing industry, editors may organize anthologies and other compilations, produce definitive editions of a classic author's works (scholarly editor), and organize and manage contributions to a multi-author book (symposium editor or volume editor). Obtaining manuscripts or recruiting authors is the role of an acquisitions editor or a commissioning editor in a publishing house. ^[5] Finding marketable ideas and presenting them to appropriate authors are the responsibilities of a sponsoring editor.

Copy editors correct spelling, grammar and align writings to house style. Changes to the publishing industry since the 1980s have resulted in nearly all copy editing of book manuscripts being outsourced to freelance copy editors. ^[5]

At newspapers and wire services, press or copy editors write headlines and work on more substantive issues, such as ensuring accuracy, fairness, and taste. In some positions, they design pages and select news stories for inclusion. At British and Australian newspapers, the term is sub-editor. They may choose the layout of the publication and communicate with the printer. These editors may have the title of layout or design editor or (more so in the past) makeup editor.

In film editing, many techniques are available for use, however, using one doesn't make your edit 'better' than if it were not to be used. ^[6]

Scholarly books and journals

Within the publishing environment, editors of scholarly books are of three main types, each with particular responsibilities:

• Acquisitions editor (or commissioning editor in Britain), who contracts with the author to produce the copy
• Project editor or production editor, who sees the copy through its stages from manuscript to bound book and usually assumes most of the budget and schedule responsibilities
• Copy editor or manuscript editor, who prepares the copy for conversion into printed form.

In the case of multi-author edited volumes, before the manuscript is delivered to the publisher it has undergone substantive and linguistic editing by the volume's editor, who works independently of the publisher.

As for scholarly journals, where spontaneous submissions are more common than commissioned works, the position of journal editor or editor-in-chief replaces the acquisitions editor of the book publishing environment, while the roles of production editor and copy editor remain. However, another editor is sometimes involved in the creation of scholarly research articles. Called the authors' editor, this editor works with authors to get a manuscript fit for purpose before it is submitted to a scholarly journal for publication.

The primary difference between copy editing scholarly books and journals and other sorts of copy editing lies in applying the standards of the publisher to the copy. Most scholarly publishers have a preferred style that usually specifies a particular dictionary and style manual—for example, The Chicago Manual of Style , the MLA Style Manual or the APA Publication Manual in the U.S., or the New Hart's Rules in the U.K.

Editing in the 21st century

Editing has a long history dating back to the earliest times of written language. Over time, editing has evolved greatly, particularly with the emergence of new forms of media and language that have led to a move towards multimodality. ^[7] Today, hardcopies and print are no longer the main focus of editing as new content like film and audio require different kinds of edits.

Technical editing is now more commonly done using applications and websites on devices, which requires editors to be familiar with online platforms like Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office, and Google Docs. The significance and intentions behind editing have also changed, moving beyond print due to the continuous advancements in technology. As a result, the grounds and values of editing have changed as well. ^[8] For instance, text is often shortened and simplified online because of the preference for quick answers among this generation. Additionally, the advancement in social issues has made it possible to offer easy access to vast amounts of information. ^[9]

Apart from editing written work, video editing has also evolved. Nowadays, non-linear editing is the main way of editing video clips, but in the 1900s, it was linear editing. As computer systems and software have developed, video clips are now able to be uploaded directly to the editing software, making the editing process quicker. With this evolution of editing, creativity has been sped up, editing has become easier, and there are now countless ways for writers to tell stories. ^[10]

Visual editing

In terms of editing visual content, the two main forms would be photo and cinematic. Photo editing has evolved considerably from humble means, dating back to the early 20th century. During the 1920s, photographers established a new discipline of creative editing by creating collages from multiple photos. ^[11] By the late 1980's, it became possible to computerize images by running physical photos through a scanner. Over time, software began to develop, aimed toward the manipulation of different qualities of a photo. Today, there are a multitude of applications to choose from to edit the content or qualities of photos; PhotoShop is a common example, as well as other applications such as Adobe Lightroom. Modern photo editing techniques include, but are not limited to linearization, white balance, noise reduction, tone reproduction and compression. ^[12]

The other form of Visual editing is cinematic editing. Cinematic editing entails anything that is to be used as cinematic material, mainly films. Cinematic editing dates back to the early 1900's when American filmmaker, D.W. Griffith, produced the first films that essentially paved the way for the editing techniques that are still used today. ^[13] The progression of technology brought about advancements in gear, which meant filmmakers were able to achieve new techniques in the post-production process through editing. Editors went from physically cutting and rearranging film to working on virtual timelines using software like Davinci Resolve or Premiere pro.

Self-Editing

Self-editing is the process of evaluating one’s own writing and fixing errors, whether they be grammatical or difficult to understand. This does not require any specialized knowledge and simply aims to improve the overall quality of a literature work. It is an essential part of the editing process, benefiting both language learners and those writing in their native language.

Students often find learning about editing rewarding in both learning a language ^[14] and improving language skills. However, the writing field currently debates whether self-editing is the best way to reduce errors in student writing. Some studies have shown that self-editing is more effective at reducing language errors in the short term than peer-editing ^[15] . However, in the long term, both approaches have similar effects on students ^[15] . Others have found that the collaborative dialogue provided by peer-editing may cause it to be much better at reducing language errors than self-editing ^[4] .

Today, self-editing is being taught in numerous ways. Some researchers have found a significant improvement in student essays through self-editing worksheets ^[16] . Others have experimented with mobile apps. Similar to the worksheets, these mobile based editing exercises have been shown to reduce error specifically in English learners’ papers ^[17] . Just as applications like Google Docs and Grammarly can highlight grammatical errors, these applications may teach students to identify these mistakes, among others, by themselves.

While there hasn’t yet been a definitive answer on the best editing techniques to improve language errors, numerous studies have shown that learning to edit helps in both learning a language and improving native language skills.

Technical editing

Technical editing involves reviewing text written on a technical topic, identifying usage errors and ensuring adherence to a style guide. It aims to improve the clarity of the text or message from the author to the reader. Technical editing is actually the umbrella term for all the different kinds of edits that might occur. ^[7]

Technical editing may include the correction of grammatical mistakes, misspellings, mistyping, incorrect punctuation, inconsistencies in usage, poorly structured sentences, wrong scientific terms, wrong units and dimensions, inconsistency in significant figures, technical ambivalence, technical disambiguation, statements conflicting with general scientific knowledge, correction of synopsis, content, index, headings and subheadings, correcting data and chart presentation in a research paper or report, and correcting errors in citations.

From basics to more critical changes, these adjustments to the text can be categorized by the different terms within technical editing. There are policy edits, integrity edits, screening edits, copy clarification edits, format edits and mechanical style edits, language edits, etc. ^[7]

The two most common and broad are substantive editing and copy editing. Substantive editing is developmental because it guides the drafting process by providing essential building blocks to work off of. They work closely with the author to help supply ideas. Copy editing happens later in the drafting process and focuses on changing the text so that it's consistent throughout in terms of accuracy, style, flow, and so on. This is usually the preferred editing for the surface-level cleaning up of work. ^[18]

Large companies dedicate experienced writers to the technical editing function. Organizations that cannot afford dedicated editors typically have experienced writers peer-edit text produced by less experienced colleagues.

It helps if the technical editor is familiar with the subject being edited. The "technical" knowledge that an editor gains over time while working on a particular product or technology does give the editor an edge over another who has just started editing content related to that product or technology.

General essential skills include attention to detail, patience, persistence, the ability to sustain focus while working through lengthy pieces of text on complex topics, tact in dealing with writers, and excellent communication skills. Additionally, one does not need an English major to partake but language aptitude certainly helps. ^[19]

Editing services

Editing is a growing field of work in the service industry. There is little career training offered for editors. ^[20] Paidediting services may be provided by specialized editing firms or by self-employed (freelance) editors.

Editing firms may employ a team of in-house editors, rely on a network of individual contractors or both. ^[21] Such firms are able to handle editing in a wide range of topics and genres, depending on the skills of individual editors. The services provided by these editors may be varied and can include proofreading, copy editing, online editing, developmental editing, editing for search engine optimization, etc.

Self-employed editors work directly for clients (e.g., authors, publishers) or offer their services through editing firms, or both. They may specialize in a type of editing (e.g., copy editing) and in a particular subject area. Those who work directly for authors and develop professional relationships with them are called authors' editors. There is hope for self-employed editors because all editing differs based on tradition, experience, education, personal style, values, etc. ^[19]

See also

• Audio editing
• Author editing
• Film editing
• Literary editor
• Redaction
• Social edition
• Stealth edit
• Textual scholarship
• Video editing
• Writer

Related Research Articles

In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work is in written, graphic, or recorded medium. The creation of such a work is an act of authorship. Thus, a sculptor, painter, or composer, is an author of their respective sculptures, paintings, or compositions, even though in common parlance, an author is often thought of as the writer of a book, article, play, or other written work. In the case of a work for hire, the employer or commissioning party is considered the author of the work, even if they did not write or otherwise create the work, but merely instructed another individual to do so.

An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element, humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc.

Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work. It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing.

Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range in dates from the earliest writing in cuneiform, impressed on clay, for example, to multiple unpublished versions of a 21st-century author's work. Historically, scribes who were paid to copy documents may have been literate, but many were simply copyists, mimicking the shapes of letters without necessarily understanding what they meant. This means that unintentional alterations were common when copying manuscripts by hand. Intentional alterations may have been made as well, for example, the censoring of printed work for political, religious or cultural reasons.

Collaborative writing is a procedure in which two or more persons work together on a text of some kind. Success collaborative writing involves a division of labor that apportions particular tasks to those with particular strengths: drafting, providing feedback, editing, sourcing, (reorganizing), optimizing for tone or house style, etc. Collaborative writing is characteristic of professional as well as educational settings, utilizing the expertise of those involved in the collaboration process.

Proofreading is a phase in the process of publishing where galley proofs are compared against the original manuscripts or graphic artworks, to identify transcription errors in the typesetting process. In the past, proofreaders would place corrections or proofreading marks along the margins. In modern publishing, material is generally provided in electronic form, traditional typesetting is no longer used and thus this kind of transcription no longer occurs.

Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted on the Internet is often called "grey literature". Most scientific and scholarly journals, and many academic and scholarly books, though not all, are based on some form of peer review or editorial refereeing to qualify texts for publication. Peer review quality and selectivity standards vary greatly from journal to journal, publisher to publisher, and field to field.

Copy editing is the process of emending written material ("copy") to improve quality and readability, as well as ensuring that a text is free of errors in grammar, style and accuracy. The Chicago Manual of Style states that manuscript editing encompasses "simple mechanical corrections through sentence-level interventions to substantial remedial work on literary style and clarity, disorganized passages, baggy prose, muddled tables and figures, and the like ". In the context of print publication, copy editing is done before typesetting and again before proofreading. Outside traditional book and journal publishing, the term "copy editing" is used more broadly, and is sometimes referred to as proofreading; the term sometimes encompasses additional tasks.

APA style is a writing style and format for academic documents such as scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of behavioral and social sciences, including sociology, education, nursing, criminal justice, anthropology, and psychology. It is described in the style guide of the American Psychological Association (APA), titled the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The guidelines were developed to aid reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication, and for "word choice that best reduces bias in language". APA style is widely used, either entirely or with modifications, by hundreds of other scientific journals, in many textbooks, and in academia. The current edition is its seventh revision.

A technical writer is a professional communicator whose task is to convey complex information in simple terms to an audience of the general public or a very select group of readers. Technical writers research and create information through a variety of delivery media. Example types of information include online help, manuals, white papers, design specifications, project plans, and software test plans. With the rise of e-learning, technical writers are increasingly hired to develop online training material.

In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives.

Scientific writing is about science, with the implication that the writing is done by scientists and for an audience that primarily includes peers—those with sufficient expertise to follow in detail. Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles, which summarize the existing state of a given aspect of a scientific field, and writing grant proposals, which are a common means of obtaining funding to support scientific research. Scientific writing is more likely to focus on the pure sciences compared to other aspects of technical communication that are more applied, although there is overlap. There is not one specific style for citations and references in scientific writing. Whether you are submitting a grant proposal, literature review articles, or submitting an article into a paper, the citation system that must be used will depend on the publication you plan to submit to.

Peer feedback is a practice where feedback is given by one student to another. Peer feedback provides students opportunities to learn from each other. After students finish a writing assignment but before the assignment is handed in to the instructor for a grade, the students have to work together to check each other's work and give comments to the peer partner. Comments from peers are called as peer feedback. Peer feedback can be in the form of corrections, opinions, suggestions, or ideas to each other. Ideally, peer feedback is a two-way process in which one cooperates with the other.

Text annotation is the practice and the result of adding a note or gloss to a text, which may include highlights or underlining, comments, footnotes, tags, and links. Text annotations can include notes written for a reader's private purposes, as well as shared annotations written for the purposes of collaborative writing and editing, commentary, or social reading and sharing. In some fields, text annotation is comparable to metadata insofar as it is added post hoc and provides information about a text without fundamentally altering that original text. Text annotations are sometimes referred to as marginalia, though some reserve this term specifically for hand-written notes made in the margins of books or manuscripts. Annotations have been found to be useful and help to develop knowledge of English literature.

Levels of edit describes a cumulative or categorical scheme for revising text. Beginning as a tool to standardize communication between writers and editors at a government laboratory, the levels of edit has been adopted and modified by the general public and academics in professional communication and technical communication.

An edited volume or edited collection is a collection of scholarly or scientific chapters written by different authors. The chapters in an edited volume are original works.

An authors' editor is a language professional who works "with authors to make draft texts fit for purpose". They edit manuscripts that have been drafted by the author but have not yet been submitted to a publisher for publication. This type of editing is called author editing, to distinguish it from other types of editing done for publishers on documents already accepted for publication: an authors' editor works "with an author rather than for a publisher". A term sometimes used synonymously with authors' editor is "manuscript editor" which, however, is less precise as it also refers to editors employed by scholarly journals to edit manuscripts after acceptance.

Developmental editing is a form of writing support that comes into play before or during the production of a publishable manuscript, in fiction, non-fiction, and academic writing. As explained by Scott Norton in his book Developmental editing: a handbook for freelancers, authors, and publishers, developmental editing involves "significant structuring or restructuring of a manuscript's discourse". Developmental editors are a type of language professional.

Content editing, also known as substantive editing, comprehensive editing, macro editing, or heavy editing, is a form of copy editing that evaluates the document's format, style, and content to optimize visual design and comprehensibility. Comprehensive editors are a type of language professional.

References

Further reading

• Overholser, Geneva (December 1998). "Editor Inc". American Journalism Review .
• Stephen, Leslie (1898). "The Evolution of Editors". Studies of a Biographer. Vol. 1. London: Duckworth and Co. pp. 37–73.
• Morrison, Blake (6 August 2005). "Black day for the blue pencil". The Observer. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
• Ó Brógáin, Séamas (2015). A Dictionary of Editing. Vol. 1. Dublin: Claritas.
• Greenberg, Susan L. (2015) Editors talk about editing:insights for readers, writers and publishers, New York: Peter Lang
• Munro, Craig (2021) Literary Lion Tamers: book editors who made publishing history, Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe Publications ISBN   9781925713220

External links

• The dictionary definition of editing at Wiktionary
• Media related to Editing at Wikimedia Commons