What does an editor do, anyway?

An editor is a wide-ranging term for someone whose main motto is, as journalist John McIntyre at the Baltimore Sun says: To Keep the Writer from Looking Like an Ass in Public.

An editor may work for a publisher, newspaper, or may even be contracted by the writer themselves. So what does an editor actually do? There are so many kinds of editors and we hear so many words and phrases like proofread, copyedit, line edit, structural edit, developmental edit that we’re not sure what they do, what to ask for, and whether we even agree on the same thing if we use the same words.

To that end, and to start us thinking about what changes a written text might need, here is a piece which lays out, very clearly, the distinction between a line editor and a copy editor.

And John McIntyre has this little video discussing the different types of editors and their functions.

So, if you want to start thinking about what you want changed in your writing and what type of editor you want, these two places are a great place to start.