One responsibility doesn’t get much of a mention – being a teacher. What is the use of all the squiggles and marks if the author has no idea what they mean and therefore ignores them and sends your version off to the printer without question? That author will go away and make all the same mistakes again. If an editor is doing something to someone else’s written work, it seems reasonable to expect that the editor tell them why it’s being done. It’s no good waffling on in esoteric terminology that the client doesn’t follow. They need to know, at their own level of understanding of English grammar and syntax, 10 just what each squiggle means and what was wrong with their original and why the editor’s version is likely to be better for their document. These days, with the benefit of Track Changes, it is easy to include comment notes that explain the changes you are recommending – I have undertaken this ‘teaching’ role alongside the editing job many times.
Of course, you can’t teach unless you are also teachable. The seminars and other teaching aids available to editors ought to be snapped up and devoured by all of us. Over time, we learn new ways of performing our craft; we absorb the basics of editing skills and the grammar, and other aspects of effective writing that support those skills; we also grow in confidence in our own understanding of what we’re doing. Gradually we become better and better equipped to pass on tips to authors and to explain to authors why we are recommending certain changes in their work.
How about this as a catchcry for editors: ‘Be teachable in order to be able to teach. Learn and then go out and teach what you have been taught and are practising’?
And this leads to another, related, responsibility – being a mentor. What’s the difference between a teacher and a mentor? Plenty, but we all have our own ideas about where teaching ends and mentoring begins. To me, a mentor guides and encourages a person and allows them to develop along their own lines. A mentor needs to be able to see beyond the present situation to where the person being mentored (the ‘mentee’, according to the Macquarie Dictionary) is heading in their career. It is the mentor’s role to help the mentee to see stumbling blocks and get over them, to help them develop skills by seeking training, to help them evaluate their own level of expertise by posing insightful questions, and so on – but never by actually doing work for them that they ought to be able to do for themselves.
Mentoring in the editing business is a challenge, an extension of teaching, and perhaps not for everyone. Indeed, a mentor may not even be a highly skilled practitioner – but a mentor will certainly have ‘people skills’. A good mentor knows when to let go and allow the mentee to take off on their own. Teaching, in contrast, means passing on specific skills, actively helping the learner to acquire a set of skills, testing them on their understanding, and making sure that they are competent to use those skills. Of course, teaching can include the philosophy and theory behind whatever practical activity we can think of, but I’ve kept my comments here to what’s mostly required to get a new editor up to speed.
If, as a novice editor, you can find a mentor to guide you while you gain experience and build editing skills, so much the better, but a mentor won’t do the work for you – that’s up to you. There are senior editors in all societies 11 of editors – they are generally very approachable and happy to mentor new editors while they find their feet.
Skills
As in many walks of life, there are some standards in editing practice. We need to adhere to them, but we also need to be flexible. Just exactly what is copyediting, for instance? To me, the term relates to a blurry area on a continuum – I don’t think we can divide up the editing role into three, or four, or five, or fifteen levels of edit clearly, though we have tried to specify three – there are huge areas of overlap; see the Canberra Society of Editors’ Commissioning checklist at http://www.editorscanberra.org/wp-content/uploads/checklist.pdf. It takes time and the development of skills all along the continuum to be able to say that a document requires a copyedit or a substantive edit or a proofread. We need to take advantage of every opportunity to learn all the skills necessary to edit anything, and to find out who or what to refer to when we don’t know something ourselves. Very basic skills should be a given – such skills as understanding the requirements of the Australian standards for editing practice, being very familiar with the conventions of English grammar, knowing at least the most common proofreading symbols, and knowing how to use something like Track Changes so that the author understands our comments. We build on those skills over time.
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So – who are we? How do we want to appear to the general public? How do we get there? Are we thinking sufficiently far ahead to take into account changes in what others think of as ‘an editor’? A great deal has been written and spoken about differences among the generations. For a senior editor like me, contact with Gen Y and ‘Millennials’ can be quite an experience – we all need to learn respect for each other’s views on work and life. To many of us in the editing profession, particularly the seniors among us, ‘editor’ means one thing: to Gen Y and later generations it may mean something quite different. We need to ask them and take their views on board – they live in the world of smart phones and message apps, and have a totally different view of how to achieve their needs from that of their elders. It can only be good for a profession if it grows as the generations grow and as technology extends into every aspect of life. And it can only be good for a profession if older and younger, more experienced and less experienced editors learn from each other and learn respect for the fundamental values of their profession.
3. Your friendly computer
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There are times when we’d all like to heave the computer through the nearest window. But there are times when the computer is so clever that you wonder what you ever did without it. Here are a few things you can do with your computer to save money, paper, ink, and keep the environment happy.
A good motto is Think before you ink. Don’t print out unless it’s necessary. The computer age was hailed as the age of the paperless office, but we’re still waiting for that to eventuate. If anything, computers have generated more and more use of paper as we all write draft after draft after draft and print them all out to check. Many of us haven’t learnt yet to read on screen very well.
It’s a good idea to design forms that stay inside the computer and never get printed out. I have invoice forms, a range of letterheads for different purposes, several envelope return addresses, application forms for training and other purposes, nomination forms for membership of committees, fax cover sheets, advertising material. All of these require updating every so often, but there is no need to print them out. And there’s certainly no need to spend money on printed forms.
Business cards are easy to design and print. There are various design programs that do an adequate job. You can customise them to suit yourself, and print them out on fairly substantial card. I have been printing mine out for years, and they are quite acceptable – they certainly save a lot of money and can be altered quickly.
A sideline of my business includes doing a lot of printing for a voluntary organisation. This includes brochures, forms, newsletters and so on. These are printed ‘on demand’ only, so that there is no stock of any of