A couple tips on how to keep your eye on the prize

I find that one of the hardest things to do while working as an editor in publishing is oftentimes losing sight of the final goal post. Particularly in business publishing, the editorial process can feel long and tedious with proofreading, read throughs, fact checking online, fact checking with another editor, re-read throughs, printing out (yes, sometimes we can be tree-mongers) and more proofreading. That sentence itself makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Here are some tips on how to keep your head from hitting that wall and stay in the editorial game.

We (those who pride ourselves on providing cutting edge business intelligence) are not the ones who end up doing the commodities trading or striking multibillion dollar real estate deals with a stroke of a pen, we are helping people get there - and oftentimes, they rely on up-to-date, easy-to-read information. So even though the pent-up writer inside might be dying to break free, shy away from the convoluted prose. Oftentimes, your company (depending on how developed it is, that is) will have a style guide that sets the tone for its publications - stick to that otherwise, the difference between “said” and “asserted” when attributing a quote to an upper-level exec could get you in hot water.

Also remember that something like business writing is pretty formulaic (I don’t have the formula now, but be sure that you’ll be the first to know when I do), so anything that doesn’t fit will easily pop out at you. This may be more difficult to discern among newer subeditors who have yet to be familiar with financial or commodities prose. As editors, we tend to stray away from something like the word “triumphant” when describing a “successful” economy or business venture.

Aside from tone, grammar can also be a somewhat tricky thing to master (even if you are a native English speaker). Even though numbers can dominate in business writing, grammar still matters! Subject - verb agreement is still a thing and adjectival phrases matter more than ever in softening prose. Furthermore, most publishing companies have some sort of rule to stray from overly redundant or repetitive sentences (see what I did there?). Newer editors sometimes seem to confuse repetitive thoughts for words and will often rearrange the structure of the sentence to make it flow better. While this could be done, avoid using the passive in sentences, particularly if the subject of the noun is known to you.

Finally, when working on a project that never seems to end with multiple rounds of “last minute” edits, it becomes more and more difficult to picture the final product (particularly when working on a larger project like a book or magazine with multiple chapters). I tend to keep a couple of my company’s magazines under my keyboard to flip through when I want to take a break. Some of them are from years ago when the company was still finding its voice. It helps me to keep in mind that I’m part of the progression in making a great product, which is often in and of itself enough motivation to power through to the end…without much head banging too.