Why You Still Need a Human Editor Part 2: Issues That I Help Writers Avoid

For the same reasons that it would be difficult training an AI tool to edit something as human and nuanced as written language, I can’t tell you every little rule and trick in my toolkit. The use cases are endless, intricate, and might put you to sleep. Instead, here are some of the more obvious examples of things I’m looking for and how I address them.

Photo by Mark Casey on Unsplash

1) Repetitive Frameworks and Structures

a) Turning a finite list into a loose “from/to” range: Perhaps you meant: “Elmer hated thunder, ghosts, and wascally wabbits.” Yet you might have expressed that as: “Elmer hated everything from thunder to ghosts to wascally wabbits.” If your point is that Elmer hated many things but only those three are worth mentioning here, that’s great. We’ll leave it as is. However, if Elmer hated just those three things and nothing else, why present them as a bigger range?

b) Overuse of compound sentences: Sometimes it makes sense to connect stand-alone sentences with a conjunction (but, because, and, or, yet). For example: “She stepped on Lego pieces as she crossed the room, and the soles of her feet protested.” Having cause/effect or action/reaction in the same sentence seems logical enough. But how about this? “She stepped on Lego pieces as she crossed the room, and the wind moaned around the corners of the house.” Unless there’s a specific logical or artistic reason for this random pairing, it’s kind of absurd.

c) Unvarying sentence rhythm: All writers have ways of building sentences that feel comfortable or natural to them. But what happens if they build every sentence the same way? You may get something like this: “Hearing the thunder, Elmer woke up. Putting on his shoes, he crunched across the Lego-strewn floor. With the wind moaning around the corners of the house, he sighed and buttoned his coat.” See what’s happening here? There’s no variation in how you place the clauses of your sentences. When I’m reading with my mind’s ear (see Part 1 for a description), I notice things like this and will rebuild your sentences to add more variation to the rhythm.

2) Repetitive Phrases and Clichés

 a) “The fact of the matter is…”

“At the end of the day…”

“But I digress.”Using an over-familiar construction like this is okay the first time you do it. Using it a few times after that might work if they’re paragraphs or pages apart. Too-frequent use becomes tedious and implies laziness or lack of imagination.

b) “Enjoy all the X that Y has to offer.”

“Here at [biz/org name]…”

“It’s not about X, it’s about Y.”Of course, you’ve heard all these curbstone phrases of basic marketing speak. In fact, you’ve probably heard them so many times that you no longer really notice them. They’ve become cornerstones of sales-oriented language, and that’s just how the world sounds. However, if you let these cliches creep into your own writing, they will undercut your sincerity and originality. There are many other and more creative ways to get your ideas across.

3) Repetitive Words

 Within the English language, we have thousands upon thousands of words at our disposal. Why continually repeat the same few words? Okay, no one expects you to write from a thesaurus, stirring in exotic language at every turn. However, it’s good to be mindful of too much sameness. Some obvious examples:

a) Proper names vs. personal pronouns, titles, etc.: Let’s say you’re writing a bio for someone named Harry Chen. There might be a tendency to say: “Harry Chen was the first person to turn wood shavings into gold. Harry Chen earned his degree in applied alchemy at Nevermore College. After years of lab management and administrative work, Harry Chen founded Elemental Magic LLC.” However, this would read far more smoothly if we said: “Harry Chen was the first person to turn wood shavings into gold. He earned his degree in applied alchemy at Nevermore College. After years of lab management and administrative work, Dr. Chen founded Elemental Magic LLC.” I think you get the idea.

b) SEO overuse: This is also known as over-optimization or keyword stuffing. Everyone wants a high search engine ranking, yet not everyone considers whether copy that grabs the web crawlers’ attention is also copy that will motivate an actual human to click the link – or even read to the end of the paragraph. If SEO best practices demand that you frequently include the phrases “awesome widget,” “organically derived,” “focus group tested,” and “limited offer,” at least work them into a well-written message that’s interesting, motivating, and not ridiculous!

4) Unintentional Rhyming and Alliteration

 “The clown frowned as he bounded around the town.”

“To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark, dock…”

If you’re writing poetry, comedy, or light opera, playing with the sound of your words can be a rich source of creative possibility. However, if you’re trying to communicate ideas without generating amusement, accidental rhymes or alliteration can undercut your serious attempt with a comic or musical effect. This is often the first thing I catch when I engage my mind’s ear: does the sound of the language needlessly distract from the information being presented?

5) Authentic Voice vs. Formal Correctness

 “Try and make it work.”

“They knocked doors for that campaign.”

“Our headquarters are based out of Tulsa.”

“We were down the shore this weekend.”

These sentences are examples of logical lapses, grammatical errors, or inefficient usage. They’re also regional syntax, or ways of speaking that large groups of people will understand without being motivated to correct one another. As an editor, I might tiptoe around things like this depending on the context. Is it the author’s authentic voice? If so, leave it in if they want to be authentic on this level. Is it part of a formal presentation? If so, determine a) who the readers are, and b) if they’ll care about this kind of imprecision or informality. We may have some wiggle room here.

Just in case you’re joining us in the middle, this has been the second blog of a three-part series about editing. Please also read:

• Part 1: The Craft of Editing

• Part 3: About AI and Written Language