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I have just this week been subjected to an editing exercise that illuminates an important point about editors and editing, so I thought it useful to share. It involves academic writing, but the principles strike me as universal for any form of external editor response to a writer:
Earlier this year I submitted two academic articles in my scientific specialty (something so boring to the non-specialist that I won't detail it, nor do I need to). I received the page proofs in July on the first of these, along with editorial comments and recommendations. Among the latter was a strong suggestion that I remove from the article certain literature authorship references that were not formally cited in the text, but were merely part of the scientific nomenclature referring to fossil species.
Not a problem. I cut them out, both from the subject paper, and from the other one, which was submitted to the same publication. A couple of days ago I got the page proofs for the second article. The editorial recommendations included, pointedly, that I should cite in my list of references the authorship publications of the taxonomic names. In other terms, exactly the opposite of what had been indicated for the first article.
I intend to question the editors and point out this ridiculous inconsistency, but it did occur to me that writers of other stuff, like fiction, need to be aware of the flightiness of the editorial process, and remain centered upon their own feelings about what is proper and what is not.
caw
Earlier this year I submitted two academic articles in my scientific specialty (something so boring to the non-specialist that I won't detail it, nor do I need to). I received the page proofs in July on the first of these, along with editorial comments and recommendations. Among the latter was a strong suggestion that I remove from the article certain literature authorship references that were not formally cited in the text, but were merely part of the scientific nomenclature referring to fossil species.
Not a problem. I cut them out, both from the subject paper, and from the other one, which was submitted to the same publication. A couple of days ago I got the page proofs for the second article. The editorial recommendations included, pointedly, that I should cite in my list of references the authorship publications of the taxonomic names. In other terms, exactly the opposite of what had been indicated for the first article.
I intend to question the editors and point out this ridiculous inconsistency, but it did occur to me that writers of other stuff, like fiction, need to be aware of the flightiness of the editorial process, and remain centered upon their own feelings about what is proper and what is not.
caw