Shouldn't volunteer editors know how to write?

[Xplorer2000]

I was checking out the volunteer editors section and I came across an editor who had numerous grammatical and spelling errors in his description of himself. I am not a grammar nazi and, by no means, is my writing perfect but, come on, shouldn't an editor at least meet a certain minimum standard? The funniest thing is that he thinks he is a master.

"I will provide perfect english to many articles as I believe myself to be a master of the written word."

By the way, he uses the word "English" several times and never capitalizes it.

 

[sr71plt]

I think the only requirement for being a volunteer editor is to sign up.

 

[PennLady]

At least it lets you know which ones to avoid.

 

[LadyVer]

An editor's profile is useful for writers in that it can show how seriously an editor takes editing and how well they know the mechanics of writing.

How to write is another issue though. I'm not a writer, but I can edit pretty well, and I have more than enough editing projects that I'm busy with. I recently deactivated my editor profile because I can't take on any more projects right now. I was also getting requests to edit stories that aren't in categories I edit, even though my profile shows what categories I edit.

But like Pilot said, I think being an editor on Lit is just a matter of signing up. One way to test an editor you haven't worked with before is to ask them to do a sample edit of one of your stories.

 

[sr71plt]

But like Pilot said, I think being an editor on Lit is just a matter of signing up. One way to test an editor you haven't worked with before is to ask them to do a sample edit of one of your stories.

The problem with that is that the writer would probably have little idea how good the editing was. With no serious vetting here, it's pretty much a crap shoot. Maybe the best approach is to consider that you're just getting a second eyes reading (which is a valuable service in its own right)--and maybe do some study to ensure you're doing pretty well on your own.

 

[LadyVer]

The problem with that is that the writer would probably have little idea how good the editing was. With no serious vetting here, it's pretty much a crap shoot. Maybe the best approach is to consider that you're just getting a second eyes reading (which is a valuable service in its own right)--and maybe do some study to ensure you're doing pretty well on your own.

I can see where a second set of eyes or a beta reader is helpful to any author.

I think Lit writers who've been writing for a while know what they're looking for, which is usually copy editing and proofing, the basic mechanics.

Some writers have asked me for developmental editing but don't know that's what they're asking for. What I usually tell writers looking for developmental editing is that since I'm not a writer, nor a professional editor (although I'm working on the professional editor part), I don't currently have the knowledge and experience for developmental editing, but that if I read something that sounds off or doesn't make sense, I tell the writer. But if they're looking for an editor to tell them what's wrong with the plot, or how to develop characters, they're basically SOL with me because I don't have that knowledge. I would think that it would probably be more helpful for new Lit writers seeking developmental help to talk to more experienced writers on Lit.

It would be nice if Lit had an editor vetting system, but I'm sure that's low priority in the grand scheme of things.

 

[robertreams]

A person may be an editor and still make errors. Especially in communications. The only place an editor needs to be grammatically correct is in a finished manuscript.
Even then, I have read many books with errors that editors have missed.
No one is perfect except you and JBJ

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

A person may be an editor and still make errors. Especially in communications. The only place an editor needs to be grammatically correct is in a finished manuscript.
Even then, I have read many books with errors that editors have missed.
No one is perfect except you and JBJ

True.

 

[LadyVer]

True.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If you think perfection is easy let me assure you it isnt. Its OCD to the nth degree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZmCJUSC6g

PILOT and I share the same theme song. PILOT is perfectly vain, while I'm perfectly talented and skilled. There was no other way to split it.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is a free amateur site meaning all writers no matter how long they have been writing or how much they think they know are on equal footing with newbies.

Same for editing. There is no vetting here and people can say they have whatever qualifications they have, but who is to say they actually have them?

Everything here has to be taken "for what its worth" and with the knowledge that internet chat boards are nirvana for compulsive liars and sickos.

look no further than the recent debacle in the GB where an asshole pretending to be a woman for years (including posting pornographic pictures of his wife who he was passing off as being him without her permission) and was finally outed, nothing here can really be proven.

So to me, the editors just like the writers, are on an even basis until the writer finds out otherwise.

I disagree with the pretentious statement made that a writer would not know good or bad editing. That's a load of crap.

I had an editor a few months ago that was so bad, every time I see them post I want to post "this guy should not be editing, beware" they did little to nothing to my story and the slew of "you could use a proofreader" comments backed up the fact they did nothing(and that refutes the also pretentious remark readers here aren't qualified to know good writing either)

On the flip side I recently had a story edited by someone and the difference was obvious. It was a fantastic job and the fact it I've gotten none of my usual "lay/lie get a proofreader, you need an editor" comments tell me they did do a good job.

I think my point is looking for an editor is just like picking a story to read here, its a crap shoot.

But its a crap shoot we're all part of and no one here is any more or less qualified than anyone else no matter what they may think.

 

[sr71plt]

Bullshit. No two people are equal in any ability/talent. That's stupid Internet think. Equality on Internet discussion boards is about access, not the comparative knowledge on any given topic by the individual posters.

There isn't just one "good" editing spot at one end of the spectrum and one "bad" editing spot at the other end. Like everything else, someone's ability at editing falls along a spectrum and someone whose writing is a sloppy as yours, LC, on the technical points, couldn't discern much at all between good editing and bad editing or your own writing wouldn't be such a mess.

It's a real hoot that you would weigh in on what good editing was. For proof of that one need go no further than looking at the stories you thought were good enough to file, whether edited or not. Equally, they show that you are clueless on grammar and punctuation--and therefore equally clueless on the quality of an edit you were getting, assuming that you bothered to get one.

Anyone with an inadequate grasp of grammar and punctuation isn't going to be able to tell how good their editor is to any degree of precision. Get real.

 

[LadyVer]

If you think perfection is easy let me assure you it isnt. Its OCD to the nth degree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZmCJUSC6g

PILOT and I share the same theme song. PILOT is perfectly vain, while I'm perfectly talented and skilled. There was no other way to split it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iUHKFzT3w0

 

[LadyVer]

"Anyone with an inadequate grasp of grammar and punctuation isn't going to be able to tell how good their editor is to any degree of precision. Get real."

I have to disagree with you on this. Just because an author doesn't know where a comma belongs, doesn't mean he/she can't tell a good editor from a bad one. Most writers don't know where a comma belongs or know when to cut the crap out of their stories. And most writers don't like it when editors cut their darlings out of the story. I kind of like cutting things out when editing, but I realize when I do, the author has a hard time dealing with it, so I've learned not to tell the author exactly how many words I cut.

Lit is a crapshoot for both editors and authors though.

 

[sr71plt]

I have to disagree with you on this. Just because an author doesn't know where a comma belongs, doesn't mean he/she can't tell a good editor from a bad one.

*sigh* I covered this in my response to LC's idiotic post. Yes, someone with only a mediocre grasp of grammar and punctuation could tell a very, very good edit from a very, very bad edit. They can't tell a sort of good edit from a sort of bad edit, though--which is most of what they'd get from someone without editorial training.

If they could discern the "goodness" of the 90 percent of edits existing between very, very good and very, very bad, they'd be trained editors themselves.

Let's try to use our brains, folks.

 

[LadyVer]

*sigh* I covered this in my response to LC's idiotic post. Yes, someone with only a mediocre grasp of grammar and punctuation could tell a very, very good edit from a very, very bad edit. They can't tell a sort of good edit from a sort of bad edit, though--which is most of what they'd get from someone without editorial training.

If they could discern the "goodness" of the 90 percent of edits existing between very, very good and very, very bad, they'd be trained editors themselves.

Let's try to use our brains, folks.

Pilot, you need to remember something. Lit's a crapshoot and it isn't a top literary publishing house. Most experienced writers know what they want from an editor and know when an editor makes their story better.

Speaking of LC, I respect his ability as a writer. I don't read most of his stories because they fall into categories I'm not interested in, but the stories of his I have read, like Home is Where the Heart Is, were well worth reading.

 

[sr71plt]

Sorry that's totally irrelevant to the point. Where do you think it attaches to the point I was making--actually, LC's idiotic points I was contradicting? This not being the New Yorker doesn't make a writer inadequately trained in grammar and punctuation here any more capable of discerning a sort of good edit from a sort of bad edit than if it were. If you're not trained in either knowing what is good practice--or knowing where to find it and identify it in the authorities and actually going there and using them--you can't tell a sort of good edit from a sort of bad edit.

Try common sense.

And, yes, we already know that you think LC's stories are "great writing," great enough for a five even when, technically, they are a rambling mess. If you are including his technical presentation in that--even after it has been edited by someone--that reflects greatly on your editing ability. If you can read ten paragraphs into one of his stories without cringing and wanting to back out, you're no editor. I've only looked at a couple of his. Technically, they are a mess. If he has an editor for them, he certainly isn't able to discern good editing from bad editing. (Thus, it's jaw-dropping hilarious for him to claim what he does in his post.) Folks who apparently can tell the difference remark on his bad technicals frequently even on his stories I haven't looked at. His stories do well because there is an undiscerning audience for them, which is only interested in the content--in the tongue-hanging-out raw extreme fetish high he specializes in (and there's nothing wrong with that--I write to some tongue-hangout-out raw extreme fetish highs myself).

And I only bring this up because his post was so idiotic and leading with the chin--and was only posted to slam me.

 

[LadyVer]

Sorry that's totally irrelevant to the point. Where do you think it attaches to the point I was making--actually, LC's idiotic points I was contradicting? This not being the New Yorker doesn't make a writer inadequately trained in grammar and punctuation here any more capable of discerning a sort of good edit from a sort of bad edit than if it were. If you're not trained in either knowing what is good practice--or knowing where to find it the authorities and actually going there and using them--you can't tell a sort of good edit from a sort of bad edit.

Try common sense.

And, yes, we already know that you think LC's stories are "great writing," great enough for a five even when, technically, they are a rambling mess. If you are including his technical presentation in that--even after it has been edited by someone--that reflects greatly on your editing ability. I've only looked at a couple of his. Technically, they are a mess. If he has an editor for them, he certainly isn't able to discern good editing from bad editing. Folks who apparently can tell the difference remark on his bad technicals frequently even on his stories I haven't looked at. His stories do well because there is an undiscerning audience for them, which is only interested in the content--in the tongue-hanging-out raw extreme fetish high he specializes in (and there's nothing wrong with that--I write to some tongue-hangout-out raw extreme fetish highs myself).

And I only bring this up because his post was so idiotic and leading with the chin--and was only posted to slam me.

I don't consider myself an undiscerning audience. I'm fairly well-educated. I'm also discriminating about what I read.

I think you take what others say on Lit too seriously or too personally at times. All writers and editors here don't have the same opinions. Disagreement or different opinions don''t automatically mean someone is slamming anyone. What I interpreted from the comments from both you and LC was basically that Lit is a crapshoot, and most others would probably agree on that, especially where editors are concerned.

 

[sr71plt]

I think you're still being irrelevant to the points (and a little dopey, if not purposely disingenuous, in your read of LC's post). I think you're just trying to shell game away from LC's idiotic post. But that's just my opinion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iUHKFzT3w0

I disagree. Each of us is very powerful and can make huge differences by what we do, undo, and leave undone.

 

[LadyVer]

I think you're still being irrelevant to the points (and a little dopey, if not purposely disingenuous, in your read of LC's post). I think you're just trying to shell game away from LC's idiotic post. But that's just my opinion.

We'll have to disagree. Any time I disagree with you, you start name calling and telling me how stupid I am, and something about a shell game, which is weird to me. How you get from my having an opinion about another author to me having a shell game with them is beyond me.

I disagree. Each of us is very powerful and can make huge differences by what we do, undo, and leave undone.

I agree to a point although I don't think at the end of the day most of us will have left much other than how we treated others. I also don't think that on our death beds we're going to be thinking, if I'd only been meaner or more antagonistic on a Lit thread, I could have really made a difference.

I listened to your YT video, then listened to Kansas. I think Dust in the Wind showed up in the play list to the right on YT, but I was, and am, so tired I'm not sure now.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

We'll have to disagree. Any time I disagree with you, you start name calling and telling me how stupid I am, and something about a shell game, which is weird to me. How you get from my having an opinion about another author to me having a shell game with them is beyond me.



I agree to a point although I don't think at the end of the day most of us will have left much other than how we treated others. I also don't think that on our death beds we're going to be thinking, if I'd only been meaner or more antagonistic on a Lit thread, I could have really made a difference.

I listened to your YT video, then listened to Kansas. I think Dust in the Wind showed up in the play list to the right on YT, but I was, and am, so tired I'm not sure now.

I saved 3 peoples lives. The bottomline is: some stay home, some hold the horses, and some go to the sound of the guns.

 

[LadyVer]

I saved 3 peoples lives. The bottomline is: some stay home, some hold the horses, and some go to the sound of the guns.

I've saved a few lives myself. We all have different roads. Some roads are busier than others, which to me, doesn't mean much.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've saved a few lives myself. We all have different roads. Some roads are busier than others, which to me, doesn't mean much.

You have a complex way of saying nothing at all.

 

[LadyVer]

You have a complex way of saying nothing at all.

Interesting. If I didn't know any better, I might think you and Pilot were related. BTW, interesting story on your other thread about taking care of business and getting rid of the body.