Freelance Writing Business Blog

Does an editor check your work?

I was recently asked whether a professional editor reviews my drafts. The answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. Because many of my clients are very large companies, in-house corporate editors usually review  my final draft, checking for compliance with basic grammar, punctuation usage, and corporate style rules.

But I haven't hired an editor to review my work before I send it to clients. One reason is that I have enough experience as a writer and proofreader to catch problems before I submit the draft. (Although I admit, editors have saved me from some potentially embarrassing mistakes on more than one occasion.)

The second reason I don't routinely use an editor is because frankly, sometimes they get in the way of presenting a message.  I have seen drafts come back where the language was stilted by an overly finicky application of  rules. A bigger problem has occurred when an editor has introduced an error into the document by incorrectly rewriting text without adequate knowledge of the subject matter. 

I have worked with editors on projects when I have been polishing drafts written by others, especially by subject experts who are writing in English as their second language.  In this case, the editor can take care of the basic fixes to the text and I can focus  on the higher-level issues such as the clarity and completeness of content and the impact of the message. 

Do you use freelance editors to support your writing work? If so, what tips do you have for creating a successful relationship with an editor?   

Acronyms with a Human Editor

The Wall Street Journal has covered one of my favorite online research sources: Acronymfinder.com. As I was delighted to learn from the article, this site is actually edited by two people, Mike Molloy and Susan Ebert, who research and verify each term and definition before posting it to the site.

I like the site because it always has the acronym I need, and it shows the sometimes varying definitions of the same term in different fields. You can even submit an acronym to be considered for inclusion.

Read the full article (you may need to be a WSJ.com subscriber). And if you haven't already visited the site, add Acronymfinder.com to your bookmarks -- as a copywriter, you'll need it!

Enhancing the "Keep Around" and "Pass Around" Value of Materials

A brochure or white paper will have a higher impact if it delivers information that readers will want to "keep around" for future reference or "pass around" to their colleagues.

To create this value, look beyond the main text and consider adding these items:

• Customer stories: Brief case studies or anecdotes about customer use of the product. 

• Reference elements: A glossary of terms, links to relevant Web sites, standards information, a bibliography, and research citations.

• Decision tools: Evaluation trees, flow charts, checklists, and worksheets for comparing products or options.

• Infographics: A "how it works" pictorial, maps, event sequences, process flow charts, and icons.

What other elements or techniques do you use to add value to marketing and PR materials?

A Good New Year's Resolution for Copywriters: Fact Checking

Last month, I was one of the many travelers whose holiday plans were canceled by the blizzard in Denver. It was a good thing I relied on my experience as a frequent traveler ... and not on the advice of local television news reporters in my city ... to know what I needed to do to make new flight arrangements. In one day, I heard several varieties of incorrect advice from three different reporters in three separate broadcasts on two different stations. Clearly, no one in either newsroom had bothered with a basic task of journalism: fact checking.

This incident reminded me that fact checking is also important to the work of a copywriter. Publishing incorrect information in a sales brochure or Web site is not only embarrassing to a company, it can create legal issues such as liability, violation of trade laws or copyrights, or improper disclosure of trade secrets.

Yet it can be difficult to know which facts to check and which sources to use for verification given the rush of project deadlines, with input and reviews coming from multiple people, and perhaps limited knowledge of the subject matter. And unless you were trained as a journalist, you may not know much about the basics of fact checking, such as analyzing  statistics, following good verification procedures, and applying industry standards for acknowledging sources. 

You can gain insights about the fact checking practiced by journalists in the book The Fact Checker's Bible by Sarah Harrison Smith. With experience as a fact checker for both The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, Smith's discussion is focused largely on the issues that come up in feature articles and news reporting.  However, she offers useful guidance for the process of fact checking, handling discussions with authors and editors, and evaluating the implications of visuals and video.

If you already have a checklist and procedure for fact checking, this book will give you new ideas for those tools. And if you haven't developed a process yet, this book will give you a good start. A quick read, The Fact Checker's Bible can help you create a good new year's resolution -- for fact checking -- that's easy to keep.

How is fact checking important to your work? What kinds of tools, processes, and resources do you use? Share your insights with others copywriters by commenting on this post.

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. --  Joseph Pulitzer, American newspaper editor and publisher