Spot on Linda!
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] Namens Linda McPhee
Verzonden: woensdag 14 augustus 2013 11:07
Aan: [log in to unmask]
Onderwerp: Re: editing - Clinical Psychology
I absolutely agree with Elizabeth Harding. I work with PhD students and
faculty in various countries (mainly also The Netherlands), giving writing
courses to demonstrate the basics of structure and readability, followed by
a line-edit of their about-to-be-submitted article or chapter. This is both
to help prepare the article for submission, to go over elements of the
course that the person has (or has not) absorbed, and to remind them that
the journal will also want to suggest things. These articles are not for a
grade, but are early professional writings.
However, many will of course also appear as parts of PhDs. For students who
are writing a dissertation composed around a set of articles, each of those
articles will have been touched by authors, supervisors, co-authors,
language editors, journal referees, desk editors, and so on, often by up to
a dozen people. I cannot see how a no editing policy could possibly square
with professional development in science, unless the expectations are
considerably lower.
Linda McPhee
www.lindamcpheeconsulting.com
On 14 Aug 2013, at 08:55, Elizabeth Harding <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I must say that I am quite surprised at the reaction my message caused
yesterday and I think I must make one thing very clear. By 'editing' I do
not mean wholesale root-and-branch re-writing.
Before retiring from teaching, I used to give, under the auspices of the
Taalcentrum at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Scientific Writing
courses at a great many research institutes in the Netherlands. Before the
post-grad students even considered enrolling in the course, they had to
prove that the quality of their English was very high indeed. Their
Bachelor's and Master's courses had been mainly in English and by the time
they came to me they had already been producing a fair body of work in that
(foreign) language.
Let's get one thing straight, shall we? These students are researchers. The
work they do is what is important and it is this that has to be conveyed
through the writing of articles. A fair number of students would rather
stick their arms into a fire than write, but writing an article is a
concomitant purgatory to the research they are involved in and totally
inseparable from it. It's a hurdle, very often a psychological one, and one
that I tried through the years to help them climb over. And I do think that
to a large extent I succeeded.
Another point I have to make is that all authors need an extra pair of eyes
in the form of an editor who will eliminate repetitions, suggest the
rewording of a clumsy phrase or the joining up of a series of short staccato
sentences. She will certainly point out ambiguities and other fallacies in a
text that to the author herself seems perfectly clear. Let's face it - an
ambiguity or any other fallacy could affect the legitimacy of the results
and cast doubt on years of work.
The editor might also suggest weeding an unnecessary purple patch, culling
excessive adjectives and so on. This editing is done with the cooperation of
the author(s) and is negotiable. What an editor does in fact is tart up an
article or book, making it spruce enough to be accepted for publication and
to stand up to critical peer-reviewing. An editor will help the author
present in clear, unambiguous text the outward proof of solid research. The
important thing is that the voice of the author remains resonant and
identifiable.
And when I say all writers need an extra pair of keen eyes I mean just that.
I'm referring here not only to academic researchers but also Mann-Booker
prize winners and renowned authors of essays etc. There are very few
publishers who would allow a novel for example to be published 'raw', as it
were. So if we accept that the work of an author with a fair fist should
undergo the scrutiny of a professional editor, why on earth should we deny
that service to a researcher who is not a professional writer but is simply
using the medium of the written word to get her work known and who is
possibly a non-native speaker to boot? That would just be plain silly, as
well as being mean-spirited.
Elizabeth Harding
Linda McPhee
[log in to unmask]
www.lindamcpheeconsulting.com
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