THE LIGHTER SIDE: Antonia On Editing

In which I contemplate various aspects of my craft

• The Saturday Night connection
• The business-editing success story
• The challenges of editing government text
• The idiosyncratic style of online writing

The Saturday Night connection

In March 2004, I wrote to Saturday Night magazine’s “Vocabulazy” column to share my views on the regrettable “off of” usage that seemed (then as now) to be sweeping the nation.

Sadly, my letter, reproduced below, failed to correct the problem; and Saturday Night itself is now a thing of the past too.

(For more opinions on correct language use, check out Tips for Writers.)
 

The business-editing success story

A businessman (smart fellow) once sent me some marketing copy that he said “needed some work.” He was right, it sure did. I could sort of figure out what he was trying to say; but it was all muddled and jumbled, with a lot of repetition and missing connections.

I took my best guess at what he meant, and went to work with my computer’s Track Changes function turned on. Boy, was there a lot of red on that page!

When the work was done, it occurred to me that customers who aren’t used to Track Changes often find marked-up documents hard to read. So for his convenience, I created a “clean” version of my edit, treating it as a finished piece of text. Then I sent the client both the “Edit” and the “Clean” versions, asking if this was what he was looking for.

Back came his puzzled reply via e-mail. He’d opened my Clean version, read it through, and wrote: “But you didn’t make any changes, this was exactly what I sent you!”

How could that be? I phoned him and asked him to read with me through the Edit document, the one that tracked all my corrections. Sheepishly, he realized I’d made a LOT of changes – altering almost every sentence of the original, in fact. I’d kept only his key points and phrases.

However, my Clean version reflected precisely what he’d intended to say. It communicated clearly what had been in his mind all along, the ideas he’d been groping to express. I’d captured his thoughts so well, he really thought my words were his words.

Needless to say, he was very happy with the experience; and it convinced him of the value of good editing.

(If you'd like to know what Track Changes look like, go to Sample Edit. You may also want to check out my services for Business and Organizations.)

 

The challenges of government text

It’s sad but true: good writing is often scarce in the public sector. Whether it’s penned by federal, provincial or municipal officials, much material in government forms, web sites, publications and reports can be really, really hard to read. It doesn't usually make a difference whether the intended readers are (other) civil servants or the general public – the style is often unwieldy and repetitive, filled with meaningless jargon.

After many years spent tidying up various official reports, I’ve seen some government prose that rates a near-perfect 9.8 on the Federal Obfuscation Gradient (FOG).

That’s a pity, because such documents – online or in paper format – are one of the main ways for Canada’s government to connect with its citizens. When written material is approachable, readable and intelligently phrased, it gives the impression that the country’s leaders care about its people. But when it’s not, it conveys – rightly or wrongly – the opposite idea: that the government really doesn’t care what the public thinks.

One reason for these prose problems is the way information is produced in the public sector. When a business communicates with customers, it has a strong incentive to woo readers with good writing: it wants to seduce them into spending money. And in the media, people communicate well because that’s their job: they’re story-telling professionals, with something to say that’s important to them.

But in government circles, written material is often extracted unwillingly from people with no real aptitude for communication, and no personal stake in conveying information. For many civil servants, producing pages for the annual report (for example) is just another chore they have to take on. No wonder they often just dash something off haphazardly, or take refuge in departmental boilerplate.

And no wonder, too, that a lot of public-service material could seriously benefit from my editing services.

(Find how I can help beleaguered public-sector writers in the Government section of Your Needs.)

 

The idiosyncratic style of online writing

How did we live before the Internet? How did we bank, shop, look up recipes, check the news, browse the classifieds, download music, search for trivia, or hunt for phone numbers and postal codes? We must have managed somehow, but how difficult and time-wasting it all was.

Still, along with its many advantages, pleasures and conveniences, the World Wide Web has its downside. Bluntly, much of its written content is so bad that professional editors can only wince and cover their eyes.

The general standard of literacy on the Net is low, and apparently dropping steadily. In the online world, awful errors – solecisms that would never dare show their faces in the print world – proliferate like dust bunnies. It’s common to see an elegantly designed professional website with great graphics, a snazzy layout, all the latest technical bells and whistles – and text that would make a conscientious high-school student blush.

In my opinion, there are two reasons for this:

• As a relatively new technology, the web still has a cheerful, informal kind of vibe. Just as people don’t usually agonize over proper spelling, grammar or punctuation in their notes to friends (well, normal people don’t; editors do it all the time), many website designers don’t devote much thought to the quality of their prose. Text is almost an afterthought for them, after all the cool HTML stuff.
  These “content providers” assume – probably rightly – that most visitors will read the text with the same happy-go-lucky spirit it’s written in. So errors (even if noticed) are viewed as mere idiosyncrasies, and carping at them seems plain killjoy-ish; nobody wants to be a party pooper.
• The people responsible for much of the architecture of the Internet – designers of web pages, e-business companies, online consultants, technogeeks – tend to have technological rather than literary minds. As a result, their style of communication is geared to others of their own kind, who think in HTML code rather than standard English. Such people can spot a malfunctioning page link a mile away, but not an improperly constructed sentence right under their nose.

The only upside to all this? If your website reads as well as it looks, it can really stand out from the crowd. That’s where I come in.

In one respect, editing web content has the same goal as editing regular text: to always be clear, accurate and reader-friendly.

What’s different is the ability to link pages. This creates a style that's usually organized laterally rather than vertically.

Even when your text has already been arranged into pages by the time it reaches the editing stage, I can still often suggest ways to organize material to better effect. I can also trouble-shoot readability and visual design problems.

Another often-overlooked aspect is the correct “informality level.” As mentioned, the online norm is for easily accessible prose, with a much more conversational vibe than the traditional business style.

But when businesses are new to the Net, or are just launching their online presence, their copy may still be geared to the print world – which can make it sound stiff and formal compared to cyberspace style. A good editor can loosen up the text while still retaining its original tone.

Conversely, websites sometimes stray too far in the opposite direction and become too informal for professionalism. Again, intelligent editing can enhance the material and add credibility.

And of course, the basics always apply. Online content that’s properly spelled, punctuated and composed, with good grammar and a straightforward, unfussy style, will never lose you readers – or customers.

(View what I offer online writers in the Websites section of Your Needs.)