I am a perfectionist, at the same time as I’m aware I’m not perfect.
Getting the English in a paper just right is what is important to me and
what makes me feel good.
Actually, I’m quite modest, but I do a good job, because of:
my English language skills. See my old GRE scores1, in
the top one (1) percent in Verbal Reasoning skills, top seven (7)
percent in Quantitative Reasoning skills and top ten (10) percent in
Analytical Reasoning skills.
The care with which I express myself. The details and the words
used are important. It is important to me that I get all aspects of the
paper right and the word I choose is the right word in the right place.
To do that, I will use Google to check terminology. I will even check
the references cited in a paper.
My ability and desire to understand difficult material. I cannot
be expert in all areas of the papers which I edit. Reading them is an
education for me. I need to work hard doing that reading, because they
are not written as introductory-level texts. Often I need to do
background reading to understand the meaning of the text. That work is
essential because it is impossible to judge correctness at a deep level
without understanding what an author’s intentions are in each sentence
of a text. I am determined to achieve this understanding by considering
all possibilities the sentence opens up, its context in the text, and
requirements the discipline imposes.
My experience. I started editing as a copyreader at the Korea
Times in 1986 and was there for 10 years, reading newspaper copy by the
Korean journalists. Experience outside during that period reading
academic articles by Korean professors whose command of English was less
secure showed me that editing papers is an order of magnitude more
difficult because of the academic knowledge that is assumed which the
editor doesn’t have access to.
In Taiwan for a further 20 years, I learned when the wording chosen
by authors could be respected, with grammar fix-ups, and when it had to
be ignored. I became used to the effects of first-language transfer on
authors’ papers and learned of methods to negate those effects. I
learned I needed to have content knowledge at some high level of the
area of the paper. And, I learned that I had to be able to follow the
argument of a paper to be able to correct it.
I now consider myself an expert academic paper editor.
