I recently joined the Editor’s Association of Canada (June 2008) for networking and professional development and I have learned some things I didn’t know before. I am not the most anal retentive, obsessive compulsive, control freak on the planet. (My husband still doesn’t believe this is true.) I have my moments, but apparently editors, by my observation, are among the most detail oriented people I have ever met. Some are obsessed with grammar, punctuation and semantics to a degree that is frightening.

(I am already giggling with perverse glee in anticipation of my editor’s reaction to the punctuation in this post.) You may be thinking, dear Reader: “Hold the phone! This editor uses an editor?” And my response is yes – if you want (near) perfection you cannot self-edit.

I suppose this is not technically accurate; you can self-edit if you are aware of your writing weaknesses and actively look for and compensate for them. The greatest issue is the author’s brain is programmed to “see” words missing from the manuscript, even when they aren’t there. Surely everyone has seen the email where every word is scrambled (the first and last letters are accurate), but you can still read the paragraph?

Hence, the second set of eyes.