Choosing an Editor: What You Need to Know

Good editing should be invisible. Editing helps authors convey what they intend to and helps authors look more credible by eliminating errors that would produce doubts in the minds of the readers. Although editors and authors work together toward the same goal—a perfect manuscript—the relationship between them is sometimes adversarial. Writers are working for themselves and will create what they consider to be perfect manuscripts. Editors are working for publishers and readers—even if paid by the author—to produce error-free manuscripts that are clear in terms of grammar, spelling, and flow.