Editorial Op-Ed | Of Reading and Editing
Inside the Minds of Editors: What We Look Forward to and Look Out for
A Day-in-a-Life of an editor
Dear Writers,
What are your impressions of editors? Are we annoying? Pain in the ass? Or, maybe, you see us as folks who can polish your stories?
Perspectives, in my opinion, are everything.
Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with many editors. Story rejections dampen my spirit for the day.
That is one side of the story, literally.
As an editor of a high-volume, writer-oriented ILLUMINATION publication, I see many stories sitting in the publication queue awaiting review, edit, and publication daily.
In this story, I will address what we look forward to and what we look out for.
What We Look Forward To
Good stories.
In truth, it is difficult to surprise us. I have read many permutations of the following story headlines:
- 10 Ways to Live a Good Life.
- How to be Successful as a _______.
- I Made $____ in ____ months.
- I Attracted ____ Followers on Facebook / Linkedin / Instagram in _____ Months.
- 5 Ways to Overcome the Writer’s Block.
- What I Write, What I Read, What I Do.
- Simple Tips from, Ancient Tips from, Pre-Historic Tips from, Jurassic Age Tips from.
- Success happens if we do this, failure is the mother of success, and massive success leads to failure.
There are hundreds of these sitting in the publication queue right now.
As writers, we always believe we have produced the next ground-breaking, viral story.
Editors who read, edit, copy-proof thousands of stories have read such topics over and over. We want to read stories that are thoughtful and knowledge enlightening.
Take, for instance, the following story by John Reel.
Here’s how the theory works. When you faced a difficult test in school, you studied harder. Regardless of the test results, your increased efforts led to you knowing more. It was your choice to accept the test as difficult. People ignore obvious difficulties all the time. I’ll prove it. Learning an instrument, for example. It’s hard, but millions pick up a guitar thinking it will be easy. That’s why so many people turn their guitars from an instrument to a piece of decor.
In an age where everyone is searching for a quick fix, John illuminates the value of hard work. I concur.
Another story caught my attention through its Sub-titles: Contending with people’s opposing views.
If you enter into the conversation not thinking that you are better than the person with an opposing view, you have a better chance of a meaningful discussion… I’ve been in many conversations where someone will say, “We’re just going to have to agree to disagree.” Yet, this innocent phrase used with a superior attitude falls on deaf ears. When presented to me like that, this phrase is worthless.
This is a well-written story because it spells out our daily encounter of seemingly innocuous speech.
Is there really value in saying let us agree to disagree?
I don’t know, you tell me.
What We Look Out For
In brief: Plagiarism.
Plagiarism manifests itself in many forms, and these are the common ones.
1. Outright Plagiarism
Copying and pasting content in its entirety with no credit attribution to original content or content author.
1a. How editors detect:
We perform duplication checks, so it becomes apparent to us within 5 minutes.
1b. What writers should do:
Use blockquotes and/or pull quotes to attribute credit.
2. Mosaic Plagiarism
Copying and pasting content from multiple sources, with no credit attribution to original content or content author.
2a. How editors detect:
See Section 1a.
2b. What writers should do:
As per Section 1b.
3. Value-Adding Plagiarism (Images)
It comes with claims such as: “I design the image myself.”
3a. How editors detect:
We have tools to trace back to original images. They lead us to copyright-free images worked on by content creators, which they claim as their own.
3b. What writers should do:
Attribute credit to the original content creator before elaborating the add-ons done by the writer.
When such behaviors are detected, we will contact the writers for clarifications.
Please note, the right to publish lies with the publication.
Summary
I hope you enjoyed this editorial op-ed.
Editors do not exist to make writers miserable. We work to publish great work.
We want to be of service to all writers.
At the same time, we have to defend our reputation as a clean publication, free from plagiarism.
Happy Writing, People.
Aldric
Dr Mehmet Yildiz Liam Ireland Maria Rattray Terry L. Cooper Carol Price Britni Pepper Agnes Laurens Tree Langdon The Maverick Files Josh Balerite Acol Karen Madej Dr. Preeti Singh Claire Kelly Dew Langrial Geetika Sethi Noorain Hassan, BMS John Cunningham Esther George
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
