HOW FAR SHOULD I GO?

Question 1

The author

Answer 1

Is the author an eminent person or expert on the subject matter of their text – for example, a
bestselling author, the chief executive of the company or an academic who has published
many works in their field? If so, you will need to judge what level of change will be acceptable,
and be prepared to negotiate your edits with them.
Whoever the author is, always remember to respect the author’s voice. In other words, even if you don’t particularly like the author’s writing style, don’t tweak it to match your own. It is
usually best to leave it alone, restricting yourself to correcting errors and inaccuracies, and
clarifying ambiguities, contradictions or inconsistencies.

Question 2

The readership

Answer 2

Do consider suggesting changes to the author’s writing style if it is inappropriate for the
intended readers. For example, a chatty style is not appropriate in an academic work or
company report, and neither is a very academic style appropriate in a relatively informal
publication or a children’s book. You will be doing your authors a disservice if you do not
point this out to them.
Also consider whether the knowledge expected of readers is appropriate. For example, a
science book for Year 3 classes that assumes knowledge of a topic that is covered in Year 6
will need to be adjusted. This sort of intervention will probably require negotiation between the author and the person who commissioned the work.

Question 3

The degree of intervention required

Answer 3

The amount of work you are expected to do can range from correcting only spelling, grammar
and punctuation (a light edit) to all that plus a fair bit of rewriting (a heavy edit). Traditional
publishing clients will tell you the level of intervention they expect. Other clients may not have considered this, or may not realise the level of intervention that their text needs.
If you find that the text you are working on as a light edit needs more intervention than this,
always check with your client that you should do this extra work before editing more heavily.
There may be a good reason why you should limit the amount of time and effort you put in. If
your client agrees that the text needs more work, you should consider renegotiating your fee to take account of the additional work required and the extra time needed to do it.

Question 4

The time needed to do the job

Answer 4

Sometimes the schedule and/or the budget allows for only a limited amount of work to be
done. It can be tempting to put in more hours than allowed for – after all, you want to do a
thorough job rather than a superficial one. But beware of exceeding the brief in this way.
Unless agreed in advance with your client, you will not be paid for your extra work.