White 1 Blending the Unthinkable: Art and Science in Editing If I only skimmed the surface of editing, I might believe that editing is completely scientific. This belief would stem from the many rules connected to editing that make it seem like the only artistic aspect involved comes from the writer. However, editing requires both an artistic touch and a scientific approach. The written word is not meant to merely convey facts or ideas, and it is not meant to merely look or sound beautiful. The written word is meant to convey facts and ideas in the unique voice of the author as well as to engage the reader by providing them with an enjoyable, distraction free experience. The blend of art and science in editing enables a work to retain the author’s voice and meaning, to follow conventions of grammar and usage, and to please and engage the reader. In my opinion, the science involved in editing is comparable to the standard rules and conventions of grammar and usage. Generally, science strives for absolute answers expressed as rules, such as Newton’s first law of motion—that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Similarly, there are rules in grammar and usage that make up the science of editing, such as how a verb must agree with its subject. The rules, or science, of editing are extremely important in order for an editor to help create a strong, grammatically sound work. However, the rules are not the only important aspect of editing, the artistic side of editing has great value too. The art involved in editing is similar to painting: an artist has the freedom to paint what he or she wants and is not restricted to any one topic or style. One person can paint in the style of Vincent van Gogh, another Leonardo da Vinci, and someone else Pablo Picasso, but when the paintings are finished, they are all considered art despite their differences in style. Similarly, editors may take many approaches to the pieces they edit because the art of editing requires choices about voice and style. I edit a work differently depending on the intended audience and
White 2 the subject matter. If I am editing a story, informal language and contractions are completely appropriate; if I am editing an academic paper, they are not. The art of editing is in recognizing the context that surrounds a work and in enabling the author’s voice and meaning to shine. An author’s creative license allows him or her to have a unique voice, and as an editor, I need to ensure that I preserve the author’s voice even if it differs from my own. When I was the head of an editing team for Leading Edge Magazine, I was able to experience firsthand how easy it is to forget that there are many acceptable ways to punctuate a sentence or express an idea. When I was making my own edits of a submission and reviewing the edits of my team members, I made sure that each editing change corrected an error and was not made just because the sentence clashed with a team member’s or my personal preference. When someone is working as an editor, it is important for him or her to develop the ability to recognize and keep an author’s voice alive in order to retain the artistry of the work. Sometimes in this quest to keep the author’s voice alive and keep the work grammatically acceptable, a compromise between science and art is necessary. Some of the science must be set aside in order to retain the meaning the author wishes to convey or to help a reader relate to the work. Joseph Williams states that “if you try to obey all the rules all the time, you risk becoming so obsessed with rules that you tie yourself in knots” (13). At the same time that editors are keeping in mind the necessity of sometimes forgoing a rule, they also need to remember that the author probably has a better understanding of the subject and the audience than they do. However, according to Carol Saller, editors should not assume that writers are “up on every subtlety of grammar and style” (25). Not everything can be an exception. Part of the blend of art and science is deciding where a work can forgo adherence to a rule and where it cannot.
White 3 A big issue to keep in mind is that clarity for the reader often decides whether an editing decision falls more to the artistic side or more to the scientific side. When an author’s style has little chance of compromising the clarity of a work, then the edits of the work can allow for more artistic expression. But when an author’s style could confuse the audience, then the edits of the work need to reflect the scientific side. For example, John Kohl says that “parallelism is not just a stylistic issue. The syntactic cues that create parallel grammatical structures are often essential for clear communication” (120). If an author often forgoes parallelism, then it would be the editor’s task to lean toward the scientific side and help the author understand the need for the clarity that parallelism gives the audience. An editor always needs to keep the audience in mind, and the science and art of editing helps an editor make sure that the work relates to the audience. My family plays a game called Codenames that requires one person, the spymaster, to associate random words on a game board with each other using only one word. Another person then guesses which words the spymaster is referencing. While I am the spymaster, I need to think about what word the person guessing would associate with the words on the board and not necessarily what word I would initially associate with the words. The rules of Codenames create a common ground, and similarly, the rules of grammar create a platform for relating the work to the audience. Then the artistic creativity of linking the words in the audience’s mind draws the audience closer to the work. Further engaging the reader requires both following rules and making the work pleasing to read. Williams says that writers “have to motivate readers so that they want to read carefully” (99). To illustrate this point, he gives an example of a correct but dense paragraph and then gives a correct, clear, and concise version of the same paragraph (25). As Williams says, “Both are grammatically precise, but who would choose to read more of the first?” (25). When rules are not
White 4 followed, it confuses the audience. However, if the art of editing is not also taken into account, there will be no audience because no one will want to read the dense and wordy writing. The science of editing keeps the reader from being distracted from the work or from criticizing it because of errors. An editor’s first priority should be to correct errors and then maintain the artistic integrity of the work. A story I edited once had the line, “The boy’s eyes narrowed and asked,” which line immediately distracted me because of the amusing image of talking eyes that it brought to my mind. This image had a negative effect because it made me disregard the character’s message. Only with the base that the rules provide can the artistic side of editing flourish and unite with the rules to create an engaging and unique work. The science of editing is required for the base, and then the art of editing can work in and around the base the science created. Together, art and science promote clarity, connect audiences to the work, and communicate the author’s ideas. The flexibility introduced by the combination of these two aspects of editing allows an author to retain his or her voice and makes a work able to engage and please the reader without compromising essential grammar and usage rules. Without this combination, the reader will end up trudging through either grammatically correct yet dense work or stylistically interesting yet confusing work. However, with the combination of science and art, the reader will care about and understand the work, and the effort the author put forth in creating it will be worthwhile.
White 5 Works Cited Kohl, John R. The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc., 2008. Print. Saller, Carol Fisher. The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. Print. Williams, Joseph M. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2013. Print.