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ELangANG 350

The Balance between Authority and Acceptance in Editorial Comments

Introduction

Editors cannot simply make whatever edits they want to their author’s work; since it’s the

author’s writing, the author has to agree to the edits. This situation, of course, leads to an issue

that all editors face: persuading the author to accept the edits. As I have found in my own

experience editing for a student journal, some authors can be quite resistant to changes to their

work. In his article “Editorial Authority in the Author-Editor Relationship,” Bruce Speck states

that “good editors use authority either consciously or unconsciously to establish relationships

with authors that will enable the editors to achieve their publication goals” (1991, 305). Authors

cannot easily refuse an edit when the editor properly establishes their authority on the matter.

Although convincing the author to change something in the manuscript can certainly be

difficult, it can be even more difficult to do so without antagonizing the author. Editors also need

to understand that “defusing potentially hostile author-editor encounters creates a climate for

negotiation” (Speck 1991, 307). A hostile environment can make an author less likely to accept

an edit willingly, even if the edit expresses strong editorial authority. Amy Einsohn accurately

summarizes this delicate situation in The Copyeditor’s Handbook with a single sentence: “For a

copyeditor, good querying skills—knowing when to query (and when not to query) and how to

query effectively—are as important as a solid grasp of punctuation and grammar” (2011, 40).

Good editing requires a balance between editorial authority and situational discretion.

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Research Question

Since an editor must be able to persuade an author to accept edits without creating an

unfriendly atmosphere, there arises a question worth examining: How can an editor effectively

express editorial authority and persuade an author to accept an edit? After describing the research

I conducted in response to this question, I will discuss how the results I found and conclusions I

made will affect my own future editing.

Methods

There were 14 total participants in my survey: 6 females and 8 males, most ranging in

age from 18 to 35 years old, with 2 participants over the age of 50. Most of these participants

were college students aged 21 to 26.

My survey consisted of a few demographic questions and four examples of editorial Commented [ST1]: Maybe include an exact number. It
will help to make the paper feel more trustworthy.
comments for the participants to rank. These four comments were designed to illustrate each of

the four strategies outlined in Speck’s article on editorial authority: “using editorial dialogue,

defining the audience, citing authoritative sources, and teaching authors and managers” (1991,

300). The “editorial dialogue” strategy was basically defined as talking with the author in an

equal relationship focused on improving, rather than correcting, the author’s work (306). The

other strategies are self-explanatory. The editorial comments were ranked in order of how
authoritative they seemed and how likely the participant would be to accept the edit. The
Commented [ST2]: Reading this made me go back to look
at the categories because I couldn’t remember what they
were. It might be better to include the list again, or maybe
say this a different way.

participants were also asked to provide explanations for their rankings. The rankings and

explanations served to determine which of the strategies were most effective overall and why.

I created and distributed my survey using Qualtrics, an online survey software. Using an

online survey allowed me to easily administer the survey and analyze its results. I posted a link

to the survey on social media (specifically Slack, an instant messaging platform) and sent the

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link directly to some of my friends and family. I analyzed the results of the survey using the data

analysis programs that Qualtrics provides.

Results

Figure 1. Rankings for aAuthoritativeness. Commented [ST3]: I changed the figure captions based
on Chicago’s caption style in chapter 3.
Formatted: Font: Not Italic

The results of my survey showed that the editorial comment that the majority of
participants ranked as the most authoritative was the one that “cit[ed] authoritative sources.” This
is the comment labeled as “C” in Figure 1 above. The comment ranked as the least authoritative
Commented [ST4]: Having two thats so close to each
other made the sentence harder to read. I felt that
removing one of them helped improve the sentence clarity.
Commented [ST5]: I think this would be fine to leave
outside of a quote, because it’s more describing the
comment type than it is quoting Speck’s article.

was Comment A, which illustrated the strategy of “using editorial dialogue.” Comment B was

centered on “defining the audience,” and Comment D was centered on “teaching authors and

managers” (Speck 1991, 300). Many of the explanations the participants gave for their rankings Commented [ST6]: I felt that the quotes from all of these
could be removed from these sentences. If you still want to
keep the quotes, they were fine as is.
on authority mentioned that Comment A was less authoritative because it said “I think” and

asked for the author’s opinion on the matter. The participants said that Comment C was the most

authoritative because it cited a source (The Chicago Manual of Style). However, some

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participants focused more on the phrasing of the comments and whether the editor sounded

confident in their own correction.

Figure 2. Rankings for wWillingness to aAccept. Formatted: Font: Not Italic

The results for the rankings the participants gave on their willingness to accept the

comments was opposite of the results for rankings on authoritativeness. As shown in Figure 2

above, Comment A was ranked first in willingness to accept, while Comment C was ranked last.

Comments B and D also switched overall ranking positions. Many of the participants explained

that the comments they were more willing to accept were clear and sounded confident but not

condescending or pretentious.

Discussion

Although I only surveyed a small number of people, I can conclude from the results of

my survey that most people find editorial comments that cite sources and sound confident to be

the most authoritative. The hedges and other polite language sometimes used in editorial

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comments make the editor sound less authoritative. I can also conclude that most people are

more willing to accept comments that are clear and that sound confident (but not arrogant).

Although citing sources makes the edit more authoritative, people are not as willing to accept

those edits. Since the comment that focused on the reader’s point of view ranked highly in both

questions, I think that the “defining the audience” strategy is the most effective of the four

editorial strategies that Speck listed (1991, 300). Based on the explanations the participants gave

for both questions, I also think that writing confident comments is the best way to both establish

editorial authority and persuade the author to accept the edits.

These results and conclusions can be helpful for both experienced and novice editors. It is

important to note that the best editorial strategy depends on the author. Strategies that worked

better on some of the participants did not work as well on others. However, these conclusions

have at least convinced me that I do not need to make my comments polite by sounding hesitant;.

pPeople respond positively to edits that are confident.

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Reference List

Einsohn, Amy. 2011. The Copyeditor’s Handbook. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Speck, Bruce W. 1991. “Editorial Authority in the Author-Editor Relationship.” Technical

Communication 38, no. 3 (August): 300–315.

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