Professional Versus Self-Editing
Factors To Consider Before Appointing A Professional Editor.
Professional editors have spawned in the market to take the burden of checking your work. Apprehensive of their services? Determine whether they are right for you.
Advantages of Hiring a Professional Editor
How do you normally check your work? Do you do it yourself? Does a friend or colleague do it for you? Or do you just pass it on to your boss for him or her to do a quick edit before publishing it? Or do you never ever check it at all?
Here is an alternative - hire a professional editor. Professional editors dedicate their time and energy in checking your work. They fine-comb through spelling errors, exercise grammar checks, decorate your document with punctuation, clarify your points and capitalise on effective delivery.
Professional editing services are not for everyone but there are many writers who will benefit from such a service. Here are some factors to consider when assessing the viability of outsourcing your editing job to a professional.
Hidden Costs of Self Editing
Like any other professional service provider, professional editing jobs do cost money. This may not appeal to everyone, especially if you feel editing is a do-it-yourself job. However, self-editing takes up time, leading to an opportunity cost. An opportunity cost is the alternative activity that could have been carried out when not editing, and this could be a money-making activity.
Nevertheless, there is no value on time. Free time, by outsourcing the editing task, allows you to indulge in other activities such as leisure or recreation. You can even catch up on other tasks while, for a fee, your project paper is being diligently checked and corrected without causing a distraction to you.
Besides that, paying a fee ensures professional results (save the cases of fraud).
Outsourcing Saves Time
As mentioned above, editing takes time, and sometimes alot of time. By subscribing to an editing service, you will save time and alot of energy. Time-management is important when busy schedules are the norm. Therefore, outsourcing could be a way to keep your schedules on track.
Product knowledge and Quality
You would probably be apprehensive about appointing someone else to check your project paper after the extensive research done to produce the final result. Having someone else go through your work without the technical know-how of your methodology and understanding of your findings might sound perfectly ludicrous.
There is a way to overcome this anxiety. Look up editing services who have worked with research papers in the same or similar fields. This would help ease qualms on the final presentation of the product.
Also bear in mind that editors are avid readers and in order to become an editor of certain credentials, an editor is used to going through different types of reading materials and is familiar with a wide range of academic and / or professional terminology.
Realize also that editors only "edit" your work - they look at basics like spelling and grammar. They are not there to do any writing. That is the job of a writer / ghostwriter or researcher.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is always a concern when dealing with outsourcing. If you are working on a business plan or a will, you would want to trust the person who is reading your document to the full-stop.
It is important to note that professional editors are like any other professionals. Multinational companies outsource functions like back-end offices and audit to professionals in those service lines. All companies appoint legal panels, thus outsource alot of documentation to outsiders.
Professional editing services should respect confidentiality of the clients the same way other professionals do. Read up their terms and conditions of their contracts or ask for one if a contract is not available. Alternatively, you can always draw up a simple contract to allow your work to be held in full confidence.
Editors are like any other professional service providers. They are there to check and edit your work. Not everyone is open to a "foreign" party nit-picking at their documents, especially those that are private and confidential. Nevertheless, it is possible to change that perception by considering the pros and cons of engaging in professional editing services as opposed to self-editing.
