I was asked by a colleague to edit a small publication recently. An eight-page newsletter-type thing. It was written by professional people who know how to speak and write English very well. Almost as an afterthought, she asked me to give it a once-over, hoping I’d maybe pick up any spelling errors or such.

Every page, every article, almost every paragraph had something that needed to be fixed. And it wasn’t that things were all “wrong” but there were a lot of things that were just inconsistent or things that people deem not-that-important.

I handed the marked-up copy back to her and her response was “That’s amazing”. Not an amazing job, or an amazing talent but just amazement that there could be that many things that could be done better to improve the quality and professionalism of the newsletter.

What things aren’t you picking up on by not having a writer/editor look at the words you’re producing?