Thoughts from our founder and head editor Louise on what makes a great editor:

 

"A great editor is meticulous and highly knowledgeable of the rules of language, but equally able to exercise judgement in the application of such rules.

 

A 'very good' editor should, without a doubt, know the difference between 'principal' and 'principle', passive and active voice, and when to use 'effect' or 'affect' and 'practice' or 'practise'. They should know when to use 'it's' and when to use 'its'. They probably even know the difference between a hyphen, an en-dash and an em-dash, and rejoice when they see these being used correctly.

 

They certainly know when 'high level' should remain as two separate words, and when it should be hyphenated as 'high-level'. They should be able to explain just why a comma is sometimes needed in front of 'and', despite many still incorrectly believing that this is wrong (same goes for starting a sentence with 'And' or 'But'). Of course, they should know how to avoid ambiguity, vagueness and redundancy, and they might even be able to explain to you the exact reason why in the abbreviation 'et al.', there is a full-stop after the 'al' only. Actually, they could probably answer just about any question you have ever had about grammar, spelling or punctuation (and if they can't answer it, they should at least know exactly where to find the answer).

 

A great editor, however, can do all these things, but is also able to weigh up the potential benefit of any of these changes with an understanding of the author's and audience's preferences and reasoning, as well as the likely effects. In short, they are able to exercise judgement and potentially decide when it might be in the document's best interests to actually ignore or even break the rules.

 

In short, a great editor does not suggest a change without thinking deeply about the potential impact of that change.

 

A great editor can also read between the lines and use their judgement, experience and linguistic and research skills to understand what is trying to be communicated and suggest how the communication could potentially be improved, especially for non-expert audiences in a particular field.

 

Finally, a great editor's changes should leave the client exclaiming 'Yes! That's exactly how I wanted to say it but just couldn't find the words!'. This is how I want all our Red English clients to feel."

ipadmini

"My experience with Red English has been a positive one.  I have found the company to be very professional and organised. Elisha, Melbourne"
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