"The Relationship between Editors and Authors: A Lit Review"

About the Author

Kelly Shackelford was home educated. She graduated with highest honors from Cedarville University, Cedarville Ohio, in 2010 with a degree in Technical Writing and Editing. While tutoring in the campus writing center, she became interested in the relationship between editors and authors and how they resolve power struggles. She now works for the Air Force and hopes to improve communication between the government and contractors.

Contents

Introduction

Literature Review

Editorial Techniques

Editorial Techniques (continued)

The Responsibility of Editors

Scenarios

 The Benefits of Editors Taking Responsibility

Conclusion

Works Cited

Literature Review

Editors and authors have traditionally been at odds. But where does this antagonism come from, and must it remain? Researchers have studied both questions, concluding that the conflict arises from two particular sources, and that editors have at least five different ways of dealing with it.

Reasons for Conflict

Research suggests that the frequent (or reputed) animosity between editors and authors arises from two main factors: different views on the nature of the editorial process, and different levels of power between editors and authors. When the two sides disagree over how comprehensively editors can edit, the relationship between editors and authors can quickly become hostile as each attempts to assert control. This problem leads into the issue of levels of power—in a power struggle between editors and authors, whichever side wins often depends on the type of organization in which they work. As Lanier says, a journal environment will likely support editors over authors, whereas a scientific or technical environment will probably support authors over editors (“Creating Editorial”).

Reason for Conflict I: Different Expectations

Many researchers who have studied the relationship between editors and authors, among them Eaton et al. and Grove, posit that the key issue between editors and authors is their different expectations of the editing process. When the two sides disagree, editors may think they are only performing their job while authors think that editors are over-editing. In Eaton et al.’s 2008 survey, only half of the 424 authors questioned thought editors should comprehensively edit; the rest thought of editing as copyediting and proofreading, and expected editors to simply clean up the writing. Grove reports that most of the antagonism between editors and authors results from editors expecting to comprehensively edit the writing while authors only expect them to make documents look good.

In slight contrast to Grove, Haugen writes that misconceptions about editing result from the workplace tendency for editors to follow Van Buren and Buehler’s "Levels of Edit." Because many of these levels are rule-based and small detail-oriented, both editors and authors begin to think of editing as a spit-and-polish routine for making authors appear competent. When editors step beyond these bounds, authors think they are editing too much.

Reason for Conflict II: Levels of Power

Other researchers such as Lanier (“Creating Editorial”) and Speck describe how conflict between editors and authors results from the different levels of power between them. Levels of power refer to the respective authority editors and authors have over writing: can editors make whatever changes they want? Can authors ignore changes they dislike? Editors, Lanier says, can be described in two terms: high status and low status. Their status often depends on their location. High status editors have the final word on alterations to writing and authors typically must heed them. These kinds of editors are often the editors of journals or in publishing houses where writing is the main activity. Low status editors have, by contrast, little to no influence over authors, who can usually pick and choose which changes they want to accept. These latter editors are usually found in scientific environments where, Lanier claims, the research is more important than the writing. Lanier posits that low status editors should attempt to gain more influence in their organizations, but he says nothing about high status editors needing to lose power in order to develop equality with authors.

Speck also describes high status and low status editors. However, he suggests that editors should seek to balance power with authors instead of gaining and maintaining more power. High status editors need to disseminate their power, while low status editors need to gain power. Speck offers four strategies for editors to employ in balancing out the power differentials between authors and themselves. These strategies are dialogic editing, defining the audience, citing authoritative sources, and teaching writing to authors and the value of editing to managers (306-311). The power difference between high status and low status editors emphasizes three different views in editing: authors have ultimate authority, authors are incompetent, and editors have ultimate authority.