Have you ever had work edited? And what did you think of it?

[Kyriakos]

It seems that in printed magazines editing the work sent by an author is the norm. In both such magazines* i have had work of mine accepted in i was asked to agree or disagree with their (thankfully minor...) modifications. I accepted everything, out of the fear that it might turn against me if i acted otherwise, and also because as i mentioned thankfully the changes were not that horrible.
Mostly they changed a word here and there, since the original term seemed perhaps too archaic to them. Also sometimes sentence structure was changed, made simpler.

Did you ever have work of yours edited for publication? And if so what did you think of this process? Was it in your view detrimental for the work or beneficial (or even neutral?)

I recall H.P.Lovecraft making it clear to the magazine Weird Tales that he only wants them to accept or reject his stories, without editing them in the slightest. Well it worked for him, but i was less courageous

*On the contrary in electronic magazines i had work accepted there was no modification of it at all. Probably because e-magazines cost less to maintain than printed ones, and are overall more amateurish.

 

[Boundless]

My work gets edited and I edit work all the time for policy which gets implemented into government - some with legal implications. I assume you meant more... creative work, but yeah, all the time.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, i meant literary work primarily, although it could be extended to non-fiction epistemic work. Not sure if your own field would carry the same connotation in its editing though, since it appears to be directed for a whole different audience and hosts differing implications as well.

So i would suspect that edited changes in legal documents are done with a very different idea in mind, namely that of the Law, and not of sentence form (unless there is an extreme case). So it does not seem to apply very well to the original question of this thread.

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, I don't like editing my own work, so I typically bang off a first draft and then let someone else deal with edits edits.

 

[emzie]

My mother's an editor. She's edited every paper I've written, though her effectiveness diminished slightly when the material became rather technical. She's still fantastic, and having to back and forth with her to make sure points are clear has actually helped me immensely with learning in the first place.

Before my creative side was... for a lack of a better word, lost... she'd edit short stories for me. Very very useful. I don't think you can really know how someone else will read what you write until it's read aloud to you.

 

[nonconformist]

Used to, as part of democratic working groups.

 

[downtown]

I've been a newspaper reporter before, and I would argue a lot with my editor, since he had a nasty habit of removing any interesting word from my stories. HS sports stories had to be written at the 5th grade reading level....it drove me crazy.

I like having somebody else catch my typos though, since I am horrible at typing/spelling.

 

[uppi]

At work we edit each others work every time something is about to go public. This is quite helpful as they can give advice on the correctness of the technical details as well as the grammar and sentence structure (especially when writing in a foreign language). In my opinion this really improves the quality of the work.

Then there is the editing done by professional editors after submitting for publication. These are usually minor changes which are quite inconsequential, requests for clarification ("please refer to the blue shape in the figure" - "Okay, it should be totally obvious, but we add a '(blue)' here") or places where there really is a problem. But in those cases it is usually better to make a third version than to take the suggestion of the editor. So if you submit quality work (that has been edited internally before), the editing process does not improve the quality by much. But in other cases (especially when Chinese authors are involved) the editing is sorely needed to make the paper readable.

 

[Antilogic]

The kind of project work I do results in papers that are edited several times over by a number of reviewers.

I would take each recommendation they make seriously, and consider them carefully--I don't know for sure, but I probably accept the majority of suggested revisions to my work. Sometimes, I assume the reader knows something or miss a supporting point, and editors can help catch that. Number #1 recommendation I can give you is to not take it personally (unless they are a really rude editor/reviewer).

 

[Kyriakos]

In my case both editors were polite, and requested my opinion as well.
But, like i said, i was not in a position to play with fire, that is demand an alteration of their modifications. So i just accepted. It is still very early days in my literary published career, so i should play safe for the time being

 

[Dachs]

You know, I've recently written something that could probably stand to be edited if anybody can be assed to read and edit a 120-page document.

 

[Zelig]

You know, I've recently written something that could probably stand to be edited if anybody can be assed to read and edit a 120-page document.

I'll fill it with puns for $20/hr.

 

[GoodGame]

Yeah I've had work edited all the time. It can be irritating, especially if you don't agree with the values, purpose, etc.. of the editing, but I usually just see it as part of the paycheck. What they're teaching might not be something you want to learn, but if it's just a small difference then I'll usually give in immediately and try to learn the nuance that the reviewer is trying to communicate.

I've recently been doing some of the work online services, where I get paid freelance for writing short snippets, and I get very irritated when my work is down-graded in a superfluous peer-review, or the judgement of the reviewer is obviously butt-hat. But you still have to learn to just laugh it off or quit working for them. Being superfluously critiqued is irritating, but chalk it up to fundamental differences between people (education, culture, etc..).