7 Qualities of a Professional English Editor

Editing is an important part of writing. After completing a write-up, you have to go through and spot the mistakes so that you can correct them before submission. If you don’t have the time to do so, hire an editor to do it for you. However, you should look for certain qualities in an editor to avail yourself of the best services.

Mistakes are common in writing. It’s not a big deal. However, the thing is that you need to correct these mistakes before submission. If you don’t, you will lose marks and create a negative impression in the eyes of readers and evaluators. This is where the importance of proofreading gains the limelight. If you don’t have time for proofreading, it’s advisable to hire a professional proofreader offering English editing services to do it for you. Given below are some of the qualities you should look for in an editor:

1. Attention to detail: This is undoubtedly the first and foremost quality of a good editor. A lot of editors will consider themselves perfectionists or type-A personalities. They are the type of people who view a typo on a billboard or hoarding and decide to call the agency to point it out.
2. Knowledge of grammar: Excellent editors have a solid knowledge of grammar. This encompasses subject-verb agreement, punctuation use, and passive voice vs. active voice. Editors can’t fake the understanding of the language which they are proofreading.
3. Knowledge of style: Apart from grammar, editors also have to understand the stylistic element of writing. Style is very different from grammar, and editors need to be acquainted with it. Writing style governs conventional practices in particular publications. It’s a fact that different publications use various style guides, so it is hard for editors to grasp the writing style 100 percent accurately. However, a successful English editor has a concrete understanding of APA style and knows when to open the guidebook when stuck on something.
4. Timeliness: When you are an editor, you have to be aware of the deadlines. If you take a long period to get blogs and articles back to your content creators, you become a hindrance. Being an editor, it’s important that you work quickly and to fast-approaching deadlines.
5. Writing skills: If you think you don’t need good writing skills to become an English editor, you are wrong. Besides checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, and syntactical mistakes, editors are also responsible for checking the writing style and consistency. You should know that a skilled editor is always an excellent writer.
6. Communication style: Good editors have a friendly communication style and maintain a collaborative relationship with writers. They assist writers in every possible way so that content creators can enhance the quality of their work. They also make recommendations on length, structure, or style to ensure that the write-up is suitable for publication and the readership. Editors may also suggest additional details that will add more value to the piece.
7. Possesses creative thinking skills: The editing process is a conjugal and creative effort between the content creator and editor. A good editor possesses creative thinking skills, and more importantly, he/she can showcase this skill in his/her write-up. A proofreader providing English editing services exhibits creativity by addressing the gaps and adopting new approaches to achieve the client’s desired outcome.

You will come across several editors offering their services but only a few are worth paying for. So, you have to look for the above-mentioned qualities in them. If you consider the editor to be a good fit for your writing tasks, you can rely on him/her in all circumstances. With the assistance of the editor, you can take your work to a new level.

The proofreading experts at https://www.hknets.net have years of experience and are proficient in delivering quality services under tight deadlines. Here, you can gain access to native English editors who know the dos and don’ts of proofreading better than anybody else.

Why Legal Writing Needs Editing and Proofreading

Legal documents call for a series of revisiting and revising to make them above reproach in every aspect. Find out more about why legal writing cannot afford any kind of misstep and the consequences thereof.

Legal writing is focused on a thorough research and processing of the legal concepts. Then it moves to organizing all the content before culminating in the writing of the legal prose. But what about checking and correcting the text?

Indeed, spelling and grammar mistakes are not only embarrassing, but can have far-reaching consequences when it comes to legal documents. Let us take a look at the difference that legal editing services can make.

• Legal documents are, by nature, loaded with legalese which makes them very complex and confusing. Lack of clarity in the writing can mess up the comprehension and make things more baffling.
• There is no scope for inaccuracies in legal writing. Each and every date, figure and statistic has to be accurate. An overlooked discrepancy or inadvertent slip-up can prove to be very costly.
• The same goes for minute errors in the wording as this can, at times, alter the entire meaning and purpose of a document.
• Nobody can realize the value of a comma or full stop better than a person who is writing legal documents. A couple of years back, a Portland-based dairy company had to shell out a whopping $5 million in damages as the judge upheld that a single missing comma in the contract worked in favour of the truck drivers who were appealing for four years of unpaid overtime wages! Get the picture?
• Similarly, lawyers cannot afford to go wrong with numbering sections and sub-sections or ordering headings and sub-headings. Such mistakes will not only create confusion but can also come back to haunt the parties later.
• Accuracy in the citations, referencing and other elements is equally crucial.
• Neither can a legal document afford to be too messy or lengthy.

Therefore, legal editing and proofreading involve a range of edits to flag up a variety of potential inaccuracies in text before it is submitted or utilized. However, this cannot be left to any layperson. The lawyer/writer may not have the time or ability to do a good job. This task calls for a professional who is not only well-versed in the language but is also detail-oriented and knowledgeable enough to verify the facts and other minutiae.

A skilled legal editor will check the structure, facts and flow of concepts for logic, lucidity and precision. There will be a focus on sentence construction and usage of words so as to make them clear, concise and comprehensible. He/she will go over the document with a fine-toothed comb to weed out misspellings, typos, punctuation errors and the like. The formatting including the page numbering, headers, footers, fonts and other details will receive equal attention.

The right professional service will ensure that legal writing meets the highest standards without any room for even the minutest of errors!