Hiring a freelancer can be intimidating. There are so many factors to consider. Individuals who haven’t done it before—or who have and have had a bad experience—hesitate to sink time, money, and effort into something without guaranteed results. You can improve your experience by choosing an editor with the skills you need to ensure that your project is done in an excellent and timely way.
What Should Your Editor Do?
The job of any editor is to help you communicate your message or information to your audience in the most effective, concise, accurate, and appealing way possible. They should not aim to make you feel bad; they’re there to assist you. Since you are hiring someone freelance, you have the final say in what gets included—but bear in mind that you are paying this person for their expertise and opinion, so it is almost always worth taking their advice!
It’s important to choose an editor that has experience and knowledge that complement your own, and are appropriate for your project. Picking the cheapest—or the most expensive—option isn’t always the best.
To find the right editor, look at their information, and ask the following questions:
- What is their background?
- What is their education?
- What is their work experience?
- What additional skills do they bring to the table?
- What are their abilities and interests that might enhance their work on this project?
The more specialized the knowledge and field, the more important the answers to these questions are. Bear in mind that though someone may not have professional experience in one area, if they are passionate about it, they may bring more of value to the table than a professional that is indifferent.
Specialized Skills
When choosing an editor, you should evaluate what their additional skills and benefits bring to your project. A good example of a specialized editor is a technical editor. Technical editors do specialized work not only in refining the English of the projects they edit, but also in having the experience and knowledge to ask, “Is this what you really meant?” or “This feels off, can you check it?” Some specialized editors will even check formulas, solve equations, or do calculations, which are incredibly useful, valuable skills.
Getting It Wrong
I have a memory from one of my college calculus classes. At the back of the textbook all the answers to the odd-numbered problems were listed so that students could check and see if their comprehension and problem-solving skills were correct. On the first day of class, right after reading through the syllabus, the professor had us turn to those pages. He began listing problem solution after problem solution with the wrong answer, telling us to write the correct answers in our books so that when we got to that point in the course we wouldn’t be devastated if we did the problem and got it “wrong” when it was actually right!
I remember thinking that it was hard to have confidence in a book like that, no matter how well-written the explanations were throughout, since it was rife with errors and issues. That is one situation where choosing an excellent editor to check those solutions would have made a significant difference to the students’ experience of the course.
Another example of factual error is from the autobiographical work of Richard Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! When he was giving a verbal description of his “wobbling plate” experiment, he accidentally swapped the numbers for the plate’s rotation and the frequency of the “wobble.” (You can see this yourself at Wolfram Demonstrations Project’s Feynman’s Wobbling Plate interactive demonstration.) Once the work was in print, the editor was able to catch and point out the error, preventing misconceptions and confusion. If one of the most brilliant minds of the last century could make a mistake like that, anyone could! Choosing the right editor for that autobiography meant that the meaning of the text was preserved and its author was shown in the best light possible.
The Numbers Game
If your project includes mathematics or data, choosing an editor who is skilled in that area is crucial. It’s very simple to make errors when numbers, diagrams, and even simple percentages are involved. For example, let’s say that an author writes, “We made 125% of our budget on this particular product!” That would be the following:
Here, making 125% of budget means that they made 100% of the budget plus 25% profit: easy to visualize if you split the budget into four pieces and see the extra 25% makes a fifth piece.
If an inexperienced or not-numbers-attentive editor that dislikes having numbers over 100% decides to change the wording, they might rephrase that statement as “Our budget was only three-quarters of our profit!”, thinking that 25% is one-quarter of 100%. However, this would actually be factually incorrect, giving the reader this impression:
Here, having the budget be three-quarters of the profit would mean they made 100% of the budget plus 33% profit: easy to visualize if you split the budget into three pieces and see the extra 33% makes a fourth piece.
There is a significant difference between a 25% profit and a 33% profit! This could lead to more than a little irritation and confusion on your customers’ or investors’ part when they don’t get what they expect.
Consider Your Must-Haves
It is crucial to find an editor that suits your needs. Where does that leave you, as a person with a project or a business document that you want edited clearly and well? You have to take the time to check the editor’s experience and credentials, including their interests and skills. When in doubt, ask.
Talk to the editor directly. Ask them about their experience in the area and their ability to do the work, as well as if they do fact and formula checking. The editor will still likely note in their contract that all final facts and data are the responsibility of the author, regardless of whether they check them or not. The extra fact- and formula-checking will cost more and add more time to your project, so plan for this!
The Right Person for the Right Job
Finding an editor that suits your project’s needs, whether personal or business, can be the start of a long and fruitful professional relationship where you are able to best express yourself to your customers, clients, and audience. Invest the time in finding the right one, and you will be able to rest assured that the editor will help you to meet your goals in the most significant way possible.