LITERARY EDITOR

A literary editor is a specialist whose duties include providing the quality of the materials prepared for print on
the highest linguistic and informative levels.

Usually, the original text is far from being perfect, comprising numerous mistakes, inconsistencies, unclear
places, and so on. Since all this requires correction, each publishing house and/or website hire literary editors.

Duties of a Literary Editor

 One of the main responsibilities of a literary editor is correcting grammar, stylistic, punctuation, syntax, and
other errors, typos, tautologies.

 A literary editor keeps track on the condition of the so called editorial portfolio. Usually it is a document,
which contains information about the originals of authors’ manuscripts submitted to the publishing house and
approved for publication; mainly, the information about authors, their works, and the amount of symbols in
them is inserted in a special file. The record of the amount of symbols is counted in author’s sheet: one such
sheet consists of 40 000 symbols with spaces, and depending on the number of these sheets a type of a
manuscript is defined; for example, a regular novel starts with five author’s sheets.

 A literary editor must attend meetings with a chief editor. These meetings are needed for discussing further
short term perspective plans of a publishing house: searching for the new authors: approving their manuscripts
for publication: deciding on the number of copies of a book, magazine, or a newspaper; establishing the sum of
authors’ honorariums, and so on.

 A literary editor performs several organizational functions; for instance he\she creates thematic plans of
publications to be released in the nearest future, and controls their execution. In case of a periodical, a literary
editor must develop the conceptions of the new rubrics and introduce them to the editorial team.

 A literary editor supervises a team of regular editors, whose main duty is to perform the initial editing and
proofreading of a text: correcting the most obvious mistakes and typos.

 A literary editor often cooperates with authors, when it comes to editing the source text; for example, if there is
a need to correct storyline inconsistencies, rename a novel’s characters, change some details of a plot – all
these questions a literary editor often discusses with the author of a text.

Due to literary editors’ work readers can freely enjoy novels, or retrieve business and/or entertaining
information they require, without stumbling upon mistakes and feeling confused because of an inconsistently
presented material.

LITERARY EDITING
Contents:
 What is literary editing
 What is literary editing needed for
 Peculiar properties of the process
 Conclusion
Jobs for editors looking
for freelance:
Literary editing is a process of implementing serious changes to the original author’s text intending to improve
it. Rather often, people tend to confuse literary editing with proofreading, considering them to be either
synonymous, or interchangeable. In fact, proofreading and literary editing differ significantly: the former
mostly implies correcting rough mistakes, such as spelling or punctuation errors, whereas the latter is a full-
scale editing process, including, among other things, the correction of syntax, style, morphology, and other
kinds of mistakes. In other words, literary editing is a serious conversion of an author’s text, comprising
numerous changes and improvements.

What is literary editing needed for

The main goal of literary editing is to make the form of the text correspond with its content. An expert
performing this kind of job seeks to make the whole text literate, its logic – uncontroversial, and its
composition – harmonious. One of editor’s duties is also the optimization of the text’s size, meaning that the
editor seeks to shorten it in such a way that the text does not lose its initial meaning; usually it implies
eliminating all kinds of repetitions, tautologies, overly explanatory fragments, superfluous descriptions, and so
on.

Peculiar properties of the process

It must be mentioned that the correction of the roughest mistakes such as grammar and/or syntax ones is done
right in the text, whereas the propositions on the improvements of style and composition are often presented as
footnotes; the author, reading the footnotes and getting acquainted with the changes the editor made, can
decide which option he/she would like to use, combine these options, or create a new variant of the text’s
fragment, using all the previous options as a basis.

Literary editing also includes checking of the factual material, in case there is any in the text. For example, the
editor checks accuracy of citations and correctness of their formatting, and the credibility of data such as
statistics or references.

Conclusion
Generally speaking, literary editing is a global processing of author’s text, performed to make it literate,
stylistically accurate (corresponding with the genre), logically uncontroversial, compositionally complete, easy
to read, and credible. Literary editing lies in the competence of highly qualified specialists, because it includes
a wide range of aspects and nuances, being if not the apex, then one of the highest levels of editing mastery.

PROOFREADING
Proofreading is the process of changing a text with the intention to eliminate mistakes in it. Unlike editing,
proofreading mostly regards rough mistakes and text’s formatting; changing stylistics, syntax, checking the
credibility of facts etc. is not a part of the proofreading process.
 Proofreading regards:
 typos

 spelling mistakes

 punctuation mistakes

 grammar mistakes

 eliminating excessive spaces between words (or adding them in case they were missed)

 incorrect contractions and abbreviations

 incorrect hyphenations

 incorrectly used hyphens and dashes

 incorrectly composed and|or formatted lists

 incorrectly formatted footnotes

 the overall formatting of a text (indentations, intervals between paragraphs, citations formatting, observing
citation styles requirements, and so on).

What is proofreading for?

Although a text is usually checked and corrected by editors on the later stages of it being prepared to print and\
or publication, proofreading is a crucial stage of this preparation as well. Proofreading provides:

 easier perception of a text by editors on the later stages of correction

 more sophisticated and quality processing of a text by editors, since they do not need to pay attention to every
mistake.

It can be said that proofreading is a sort of elementary editing, which eliminates the roughest errors, technical
flaws, and so on.

What Does a Literary Editor Do?

For a publication, a literary editor reads and evaluates fiction, such as
short stories, or non-fiction, such as reviews. He or she may also
contribute to the publication writing articles and preparing works other
authors for publication. Book publishers, magazines, and newspapers
hire literary editors. They deal with literary or academic works rather than
mainstream, commercial pieces. The specific responsibilities of a literary
editor vary depending on the publication and whether the work is done
full-time or on a freelance basis.

As consultants, freelance literary editors usually work for a variety of

publications. They may assist in the planning of the publication’s content
as well as the rewriting of some of the contributors’ contributions. A
freelance literary editor may focus on a particular field, such as working
exclusively for academic presses. He or she may also contribute original
material to one or more publications.

Literary editors ensure that all pieces adhere to the magazine,

newspaper, or book publisher’s content and style guidelines. Many book
editors spend a significant amount of time reviewing proposals and
communicating with authors. Newspaper literary editors typically work
with reviewers and prepare their work for weekend or other supplement
sections. Literary magazine editors usually accept stories from writers
after ensuring that the length, style, and content meet the publication’s
standards.

While some literary editors accept pitches from authors, such as requests
to review a specific book, others may assign work. A literary editor
frequently communicates with a group of writers who contribute to the
publication on a regular basis via email or phone. Ads are commonly
placed literary editors to encourage new writers to submit work to the
publication. They make sure that writers have access to guidelines such
as word count minimums and maximums, as well as specific style
requirements.

Proofreading and copy editing are common responsibilities for literary

editors. Literary editors must read all materials sent writers carefully in
order to revise each piece to fit the format and style of the publication.
In most cases, the editor corrects spelling, grammar, and punctuation
errors, as well as shortening sentences or paragraphs to make them
more clear and concise for the reader. Story continuity is also checked
literary editors. For example, he or she will need to keep an eye out for
inconsistencies like a character who is allergic to shellfish in one chapter
but orders a shrimp dinner later in the book.

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