Why Editors Should Rule the World

October 7, 2008

By Kim Werker

Editors should rule the world because good ones prevent smart people from looking like idiots.

I live with an engineer. In our house are professional and academic journals that do such painfully awful things to the English language I’ll find myself tempted to phone up a publisher to offer to take a red pen to their draft publication for no pay at all.

Pointed out to me by the man this morning, a drop quote in OR/MS Today*:

“There is a recurring theme that a body of data analysis skills exist that are uniquely analytics.”

A drop quote. Pulled out and highlighted in large, coloured text. Now, sure. This sentence, as written, might make for a good zinger of a question on a Grade 10 English test. Maybe even a bonus question. “Analytics” is, after all, not a plural. But in an academic publication? Simply unacceptable.

* It’s the publication of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

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Tags: editing, writing

This entry was posted on October 7, 2008 at 8:11 am and is filed under Blather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

http://www.nhoj.com John Markos O'Neill

I would say something like, “These cultural references imply that data analysis skills are not merely a useful set of tools, but a cohesive discipline called analytics.”
http://www.kimwerker.com kpwerker

Hired!
spinstah

Oh, try this: “The sensemakers may not be sure what to handoff in the earlier stages of sensemaking since sensemaking is not complete”
http://www.kimwerker.com kpwerker

What's that now?
http://www.spinstah.net/blog spinstah

Oh, try this: “The sensemakers may not be sure what to handoff in the earlier stages of sensemaking since sensemaking is not complete”
http://www.kimwerker.com Kim Werker

What's that now?
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