Looking For The Problems

So, for the past two weeks our assignment was to go on three of the school's English webpages, find issues on them, and edit them. Unlike previous assignments the errors were not quite as glaring (at least most weren't). While a part of me wanted to complain about this (as well as how terrible the English webpages were) another part of me realized that this is an editor's job. Not all texts will have glaring "Fix Me" problems. It would be nice if they all did; however, the people writing are professional authors and professors who, in many cases, know their English and are not likely to make major mistakes. Their mistakes will be the small ones. Theirs are the mistakes most can look past. Dangling modifiers, odd phrasing, and the use a comma versus a semicolon are things that lay readers may not notice or care about. Editors just spruce it up to make sure these mistakes aren't detrimental. Yet, even these pros can make glaring mistakes; for instance, they can have two of the exact same sentences following each other. It's not going to hurt the meaning of the text, but it is an eyesore that no one wants. So, the editor is supposed to notice these things and correct them. After searching I did see these small mistakes on three pages. Some were big, but not detrimental. It made me wonder whether professional editors prefer these clean ups to the ones where there are bigger issues. Which is more fun or more challenging? Does it even matter because either way they made mistakes? Guess I will find out someday.

Signed,
Fixer of Writing