by Joe Wallace

Believe it or not, new editors, your editing skills are often closely tied to your management skills. Much depends on the nature of your editing job but one thing’s for sure–editing someone else’s work requires the same amount of tact and the interpersonal skills required to be an effective leader.

If you’re one of the lucky ones who get to edit without interpersonal consequences, my hat is off to you, but for many more of us, talking with the person you edit is a requirement.

How do you edit someone else’s work and keep it professional and friendly? New editors often feel intimidated when editing the work of someone senior to them and perhaps rightfully so (in some cases). Are you on your game enough to give constructive criticism?

Here’s how to go about those uncomfortable early discussions:

• Read the piece without considering who wrote it. Review the text for its own sake and discard your personal knowledge of the author. You’ll find yourself looking at the work far more objectively than if you keep reminding yourself you have to face your writer.
• When offering a critique of the work, don’t use “you” and “I” pronouns. Say “we” and “us” instead. “You” sounds like a criticism, “we” sounds like a group effort.
• Instead of issuing a direct order or an edict about changing the copy, try suggesting instead. That makes your ideas sound less like “I know better” and more like “We’re almost ready for press time, just one more tweak.”
• Remember when you got your first editorial critique? Try to access your feelings from way back then and use them to guide your decisions about how to discuss changes with your writers.

That said, if you want to get educated about copyediting and proofreading, Copyediting and Proofreading For Dummies is definitely for you. Rave reviews abound for the For Dummies series in practically any topic, but this one is being called a copyediting bible, a lifesaver, confidence booster, you name it.

What’s the difference between proofreading and copyediting? Do you know how to develop your own system of checking a body of text with confidence, knowing that you didn’t overlook a stray comma or abused semi-colon?

That’s where this book comes in. If you’re fuzzy on publishing terms, copy editing symbols and other technical details, you won’t be after reading Copyediting and Proofreading For Dummies.

I’ve said it before…before you can realistically start editing other people’s work for pay, you need to be able to edit yourself. New writers and editors would do well to have a good long read of Claire Kehrwald Cook’s Line By Line. How do you self-edit your own work? Everybody has their own tricks, but this book is a way to give you a head start to developing those editing practices and take some cues from others.

The tough thing about self-editing when you are in the early days of your work as an editor writer is learning what to keep, what to lose, and what to leave well enough alone. Line By Line can help give you perspective on all that. Every good writer is also an editor. Anybody can bang out text on a page, but the real writing comes with plenty of editing.

Line By Line has gotten rave reviews from writers who literally believe this book has changed their lives. That’s a pretty bold claim. Will it do the same for you?