The Golden Pencil: The Freelance Writer’s Resource

Why I’m Not a Copy Editor

by Anne Wayman on August 26th, 2006

Sometimes I think the world is divided into two types of folks… those who, like me, love the big picture and those who are good with a ton of small details. It’s the latter that make good copy editors.

I’ve recently been reminded how important detail people are. As I headed up the effort to stage a five day conference, I found I was good at seeing the whole, but hopelessly inadequate for dealing with the details. Fortunately I had a second-in-command who is just the opposite. Together we made a truly dynamite team.

It’s the copy editors of the world that make freelance writers like me look good. They spot the inconsistencies in my writing, question sentence structure I don’t even understand and generally add the final polish to make my work look professional.

Oh sure, you hear horror stories of copy editors radically changing text, but, on the whole, that’s not been my experience. I’ll never be the sort of person that can spot every error and I’m grateful for those who can.

Write well and often,

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POSTED IN: Musings From A Freelance Writer, The Kitchen Sink