» Real-world Editing
Carol Fisher Saller, of the University of Chicago press, on what’s most important in editing:
The manuscript does not have to be perfect because perfect isn’t possible. As I say in The Subversive Copy Editor, there’s no Platonic ideal for that document, one “correct” way for it to turn out, one perfect version hidden in the block of marble that it’s your job to discover by endless chipping away. It simply has to be the best you can make it in the time you’re given, free of true errors, rendered consistent in every way that the reader needs in order to understand and appreciate, and as close to your chosen style as is practical.Simple, but rarely easy.
