Editors are everywhere. The people who spot errors and keep language clear are not just in publishing houses, poring over the next bestseller. They're in offices on Main Street and cubicles in Silicon Valley; they're at front desks everywhere and home offices anywhere. They're polishing a report, reviewing a memo, proofreading a Web site. They're perfecting their own work or troubleshooting someone else's. Editors are everyone who works to be sure that writing is correct, consistent, and clear—and, at its best, compelling.
If you're one of those people, you're an editor, and this book is for you. We hope you'll consider it a trusted mentor and keep it close at hand. Whether you have editorial experience or not, you'll learn how to spot problems in any written work, and what to do once you've found them. You'll learn the process of editing—how to identify project parameters, how to mark changes and ask authors questions, and, of course, what to look for as you edit.
You'll also learn some things the easy way that we've learned the hard way over our combined several decades of squinting at words. We've included as many tips from the real editorial world as we could squeeze in, an entire section to help you master electronic editing, and even some pointers for editing specialized material.
You'll find some interesting extras in Appendix B, including an editing test you might want to take, just for fun, before reading the book (but no peeking at the answer key!) and then again after you finish, to marvel at your new expertise. You'll also find, throughout the book, a collection of practical tools to transfer to your own desktop and use, now.
No matter where you work or what kind of writing you need to improve, this book will help you achieve every editor's goal: to make sure nothing stands between the writer's message and the reader's mind.