Are you comfortable delivering constructive feedback?ĭo you have to give up writing to become an editor?.Do you enjoy developing and shaping content?.If you’re not sure whether editing is the right move for you, ask these questions: If you’re that kind of writer, you might consider becoming an editor you can transfer that strength to others’ work.
Document editor job description how to#
Some people are great writers because they know how to manipulate words so any story sounds great and any message is compelling. These people probably aren’t great editors. Some people are great writers because they’re great storytellers or they have a compelling message to share. You are a writer now, and most editors begin with an interest in writing - few people at a young age fall in love with the written word and believe their destiny is to polish someone else’s. Discuss these with your client or boss upfront to understand what’s expected of your role. How much any of these tasks are included in a job depends on the organization, client or project’s needs. An editor job description could easily include helping writers brainstorm ideas and reshape pitches, guiding them through common mistakes and helping them lean into their creative strengths, assigning and managing content, supervising staffers or freelancers and contributing to business goals. Your more writerly friends probably understand that editing also means helping a writer mold content into its best form, including its organization, formatting, word choice, sentence structure, fact-checking, and our beloved grammar, punctuation and style. Our job is to ensure a piece of writing shines, that the audience will understand it, that it achieves its purpose and that the author always comes out on top. Stop with this myth.)Įditors are advocates - for good writing, for an audience, for the goal of a piece and for the author. Who are your favorite editors? Observe how they work with you: What kinds of conversations do you have? What kinds of comments do they make on your work? What tactics do you like and dislike? What does an editor do?Ĭontrary to what your non-writer friends who constantly ask you to look over their writing believe, an editor is far more than a typo catcher. I’d learned to think like an editor.īefore you delve into editing, think about what it takes to be a good editor. I knew what kind of gigs to look for, and I had the experience to back it up. Once I was doing the work daily, finding freelance editing gigs was easier. My editing career truly began when I applied for an open editing position at The Penny Hoarder and passed the editing test with a couple years’ more knowledge of the process.
Work like this gave me experience working with other people’s writing, a good stepping stone to becoming an editor. In that role, I took on additional tasks, including coordinating syndicated blog posts and working with our social media team on graphics. In 2015, I started as a staff writer with The Penny Hoarder. (Hint: They make the writing in editing tests really bad on purpose. Instead - laugh with me - I made a few copy edits and submitted the test with a note to the hiring manager that the piece was pretty much unfixable. In retrospect, I realize I was missing a huge skill: the ability to ask the right questions to guide a writer to improve the piece. After an editing test, I didn’t get a call back, even though I thought I’d done well.
And I was thinking like a writer.Īt one point, I applied for a staff editor position with a blogger I knew well. (Holy creativity, fiction writers! Kudos.)Įarly on, my freelance editing work was sparse and low-paying, because, no skills. Over time, I realized my editing skills even outshine my writing skills I’m more adept at perfecting existing content than producing something of my own from scratch. Working on these hobby projects (for free, because I had no actual editing skills) helped me see how much I enjoyed working with others’ writing.
Document editor job description professional#
Like a lot of professional writers, I’ve always had friends who reached out for editing help on projects. How to become an editor and broaden your career horizon We’ll cover what an editor does, whether you can be an editor and a writer, types of editors, how much money editors make, and where to look for editing jobs. In this post, I’ll share everything I know about how to become an editor, based on my experience transitioning from writer to editor, in both freelancer and staff roles. Yet editing is often a natural progression for writers within an organization, and it’s a way for freelancers to broaden their work prospects. Despite some similarities, writing and editing are not the same job.
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