Corporate Editing - Types (or Layers) of Editing

There are four types of editing that I regularly apply to corporate reports. The corporate world tends to undervalue editing of documents, and often all four are carried out at the same time. In standard publishing, they are not only separate functions, they are often conducted by different people, who specialise in their type of editing. 

Sadly, there is a belief that because people have a university degree they don’t need an editor. I always retort that everyone, even an editor, needs an editor. If best-selling authors (think JK Rowling, multi-millionaire) have editors, why do we mere plebs think we don’t need them?

Content Editing

In theory, content editing is the most likely to be done in a corporate setting. This is simply checking that the document includes all the information it should and none that it shouldn’t. The reality is that the author is often far too close to the subject matter and document to see what they’re not saying.

I was once handed a major bid document, about two hours before the submission deadline, and asked to edit it. What they expected me to do was ‘proofread’ it – check for obvious typos, spelling mistakes and missed words. That wasn’t was it needed.

The document had been to the graphics department. The company recognised that not everyone was good with layout, colour and pictures, so we had a graphics department. The document was beautiful. Lovely layout, great style choices, beautiful and relevant graphics. When I handed it back, I said I couldn’t fix it in two days, let alone two hours. There were whole pages that said nothing. There was one section where the heading didn’t relate to the text in any way (or maybe the text didn’t relate to the heading). In fact, the subject matter of the text changed so dramatically mid-way through that I thought I’d dropped a page. There was no connection from one block of text to the next, no flow of thought or ideas through the document. I don’t remember the subject matter now, but as an example (and it really was this extreme), the heading was “Ice creams of the 21^st century”, the first paragraph was about chocolate bean harvesting in the Amazon, and over the page the next paragraph was about Italian summers. Are you surprised I thought there was a page missing?

But it really was a beautiful document. Strange that we’re more concerned about what the document looks like than what it actually contains.

Structural Editing

Structural editing follows on from content editing. Once you’re sure that the document has a story, structural editing checks that the story flows; that each chunk of text flows from the previous chunk and into the next chunk. Imagine reading Little Red Riding Hood, starting with the Red meeting the Wolf at Grandma, followed by her walking through the woods, and ending with her being reunited with Grandma after the Woodsman kills the Wolf. It’s a ridiculous thought, but often that’s how our corporate reports read.

Structural editing needs to be conducted in layers. First, do all the sections of a report flow; next, do all the paragraphs or sub-sections within each section flow; and finally, does every sentence within each paragraph flow.

Copy Editing

Copy editing is the nit-picky, time consuming, eye-straining, brain-numbing portion of the editing process. Which is probably why most corporates do it half-heartedly, or not at all. Copy editing is where you pick up all the inconsistencies, where you fix all the silly sentences, where you remove all the bombastic terminology. The process I use for copy editing is the main focus on this publication, because without a process you can’t possibly remember everything that has to be checked.

Proof Reading

Proof reading is what most people mean when they ask you to edit something. They mean, “Hey, this is really good writing. I know because I wrote it. But I’m not a typist, so there may be some typos in it. Please fix them.” And, essentially, that’s what proof reading is – it’s fixing the last minute errors, because that’s all the time you’re normally given. Typos, spelling mistake, really obvious grammar issues, and missed words. Nothing more.

Given that most corporate offices only proof read documents (often with a fair bit of slap and dash), and miss the three biggest and most effective components of the editing process, is it any wonder that our reports read the way a mouthful of dry sawdust tastes?

Corporate Editing - A Preface

I am beginning a series of posts (hopefully regularly) on corporate report editing. A step-by-step, editing for non-editors guide.

In 2008, at the age of 40, I graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Management. Although there’s a lot of encouragement to return to school and become qualified in something, anything, mature-aged graduates are often a curiosity in the workplace. A number of my supervisors were younger than me, none of them significantly older. While they had a lot of professional experience that I didn’t have, they had no more life experience. 

In just about any office setting, graduates get given the dregs of work. Often this includes days of mindless photocopying or filing. After all, someone has to do it and the graduate is probably a cheaper resource than the admin assistant. As a mature-aged graduate, coming out of admin, firstly, I wasn’t necessarily the cheapest resource and secondly, many of my supervisors were uncomfortable handing such work to me.

In a moment of sheer desperation, one supervisor handed me a chapter from an Environmental Impact Assessment and said, “Here, read this and see if it makes sense.” And the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

My input to that first report was very minimal. At best, I proofread it. That is, I checked it for typos, spelling errors and missing words. A senior colleague read it and corrected a whole bunch of things I had no idea about (or was too insecure to change). I now work as a freelance editor, freely suggesting changes, and even on occasion recommending some documents never be published.

Am I brilliant editor? No, I don’t think so. My social media network take great delight in pointing out my grammar fails. I am methodical, with a well-designed editing process that takes an average corporate report and lifts it its standard. My method depends not so much on my language ability as it does on the step-by-step process that I apply to each document. Being a bit of language nerd obviously helps, but even someone with solid corporate English skills can improve their documents with the same process.

This is not a quick-fix process. It is time and labour intensive. You cannot speed read or skim read. You cannot read just once through from top to bottom. 

Editing, whether you’re seen as qualified by the writer or not, is a tricky balancing act. Imagine a friend coming to you and asking whether they should marry their partner – an individual for whom you harbour a deep loathing, considering them completely unworthy of your friend and a general lowlife. Your friend, however, is absolutely besotted with them. What do you say? Some of us would barge in, all truth and no tact, telling our friend exactly what we think of the partner. Others among us would be so concerned not to hurt or upset the friend we’d end up endorsing, if not actually recommending, the marriage proceed. 

For many people the stuff the write – whether it be a report for work, a university assignment or a long-dreamed of novel – is an object of obsessive devotion and love. The editor needs find a line between blunt truth and wimpy complicity. The blunt truth just ends the friendship; the wimpy complicity leads to longer term hurts. 

As a ‘stand to the side’ corporate editor I had the advantage of not having to take responsibility for whatever ended up going out the door. I made suggestions, I offered alternatives, I put forward ideas, but at the end of the day (or whatever the deadline for the document was) I was not responsible. The author, reviewer and approver all took on that responsibility.

You may not be so fortunate. You may be the approver, the one with the responsibility of signing off on the document. Biased as I may be, I sincerely believe that is not the ideal. Ideally, editing should be a separate process. The editor becomes not the friend being asked for advice, but a counsellor. However, if you are cast in the role of honest friend, keep in mind that honesty does not necessarily need a sledge hammer or a doormat to be constructive.

Hopefully, this series of posts will give you some tips on how to approach editing without resorting to either extreme.

Next time: four levels of editing.

Editor on the Loose

I'm an editor. For the past four or five years I've been employed by a technical consultancy – I also have an environmental degree –to edit large, multi-author, multi-discipline environmental documents. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. With the global financial crisis, a tentative mining and resources market, and a few company set-backs, my employer decided that good grammar and readable documents were no longer a high priority.

Sad, but true; my services were no longer required and I was back in the job market – after 14 years with the same company. I decided that while I was looking for someone else happy to pay my bills, I'd do a little bit of freelance editing. Perhaps move into some fields I've never worked in. Well, truth be told, I've only ever worked on scientifically technical documents, so the possibilities were endless.

Now, before you read my posts and judge my editing, please keep in mind the old adage, "the mechanic has the worst car". The reason writers need editors is that editing your own words is really, really hard. Your brain knows what words should be on the paper (or screen); your brain knows what you intend the reader to see, and it very sneakily tells you that's what on the paper (or screen). The human brain is a con-artist of the highest magnitude and it LIES. There may be the odd missing word, the occasional really bad typo, and frequent spelling errors, but I am an editor and I will see all those issues in your document (and in my own in about 12 months time).

Why have I started a blog? To drum up business is the really obvious reason; however, I'm a little more complex than that. The reason I edit, the reason I enjoy editing, is that it helps people communicate their message more clearly. Most people are experts at something, which isn't always written language. Because we all use language every day, we assume we're all experts at it. But if that were the case, there'd only be one job – writer. And while we all may be required to write in our work-a-day lives, that doesn't mean we're all writers. I write technical reports, I write editorial commentaries ("I think you should fix this and that in your document), I write this blog and another, I write copious posts to Facebook and the occasional one to Twitter – that does not a writer me make. (See, unnecessary fancy twist of words, creating a blip of confusion in the reader's mind – not a good writing trait.)

Okay, so the reason I've started this blog is because I'm passionate about helping people communicate more clearly with their written words. I thought if I started an editing blog and set myself the task of regular (hopefully daily) updates I could perhaps communicate some of my passion and knowledge to the work-a-day writer, who may never need my services as an editor.

On my other (personal life) blog (An Ordinary Life) I am attempting to follow Noah Scalin's, "365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!". This is a book with a creative challenge per day for a year. Noah suggests picking a theme (skulls, birds, quilting, etc) or medium (writing, painting, sewing, etc) for the year. In my personal challenge I opted for three criteria: words OR fabric AND create no clutter. As a starting point for this blog, I thought I might use the Journal as an inspiration leaping point. If my "words" theme from An Ordinary Life coincides, I'll cross-post. Otherwise, I'll aim to come up with something new and fresh from the world of language.

Before I start the Journal though, today's thought, inspired by the post title I choose.

Loose loses an 'o'.