Interview with an editor (Answers, Part Four)

Hee hee. One more question! I also will post the Top 10 Reasons Why Editing Is COOL! list at the bottom of the question.

17. Any advice for aspiring editors???? Of course! :) Now, this is only my opinion, but these are the things that have worked for me.

• Read voraciously. Read anything you can get your hands on. Newspapers and magazines are great -- they're tightly edited AND you can learn something about the world at the same time. Some books I'd recommend are: Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss; Lapsing Into a Comma by Bill Walsh; and any number of books by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. These books are lighthearted (read: NOT a textbook!) and even humorous -- but you'll learn something, too.
• Buy -- and read -- your style guides. My newspaper editing largely references The Associated Press Stylebook. My book editing largely references The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. (This book is lovingly called Big Orange -- if you own a copy, you know why.) My magazine editing uses a hybrid of AP and CMS styles.
• Never turn off your "eagle eyes." I find myself mentally editing billboards, comic strips, song lyrics. Any time you read, think, How could this be tighter? Does it need to be reworded? Are there any typos? When you have your eagle eyes on, these things jump out at you. I'm not kidding.
• And this is the most important tip I can give an editor. I learned this from my U of M copy editing teacher -- and now my friend -- Dr. Cynthia Hopson. She taught me to "learn to listen to the little bells." (When you say this to non-editors, they usually look at you oddly!) But here's how to learn to listen to the little bells: Read your style guides through at least once, front to back. Will you remember everything? Of course not. It's impossible. But, hopefully, when you start editing, a word or a punctuation will trigger a little bell in your head: That might be wrong! And I know I've seen it addressed in my style guide! The little bells, I believe, are what differentiate a good editor from a great editor.

And that, as they say, is that. The Top 10 reasons are getting their own post for easy referencing later.