When editors foul things up II

Once an editor altered something I'd written because, it seems, he couldn't find a particular word in his dictionary, and so he assumed it was a misspelling. As a result, one sentence became utter nonsense. 

Writing about Taiwan's tobacco farmers, I used the word “monopsony.” If you haven't studied economics, you may not know that this describes a situation where there is but a single buyer of a particular commodity; in the absence of government regulation, the buyer is in a position to control the price. The editor changed this to “monopoly” – the reverse situation, where one company or person is the sole supplier of a product. 

I learned two things from this experience, and the disaster described in the previous post. Firstly, whenever I use specialist terms or foreign words in articles, I now add a note to the text – usually in red capitals, so it can't be missed – explaining the meaning of the term, and assuring the editor that it's spelled correctly. Secondly, I remind every editor I work with that I'm more than happy to answer questions about what I've written. 

And, of course, when I'm editing someone else's work, if I see anything which is less than crystal clear, I shoot off an email to the writer.

When editors foul things up I

If you write feature articles for publication, this may well happen to you: An article you've worked hard on is published, but now it's riddled with errors. They're not your fault, but they're under your byline!

This happened to me when I wrote about Taiwan's birds and conservation issues for a government publication in 2008. The corrected Web version article is here; the print edition and the original Web version contained four serious factual inaccuracies, all of which resulted from the editor altering what I'd written.

The most serious was that, throughout the piece, the term "endemic species" had been changed to "native species." If you know anything about ecology and biogeography, you'll know why this appalled me. (Endemic means found only in that place or country; native species are indigenous but occur naturally in other places.)

In the paragraphs about the dam, the editor changed “goes ahead” to “given the green light.” At the time of writing, the authorities had given the dam project the green light, but environmental groups were trying to have the decision overturned. Therefore, whether it would go ahead or not was still in doubt.

I'm glad to end by saying that when I pointed out these errors, the editor took full responsibility, apologized and immediately corrected the Web version of the article. 

In my next post, I'll discuss another instance when an editor made a change to one of my article that likely caused some readers to think whoever wrote it is an idiot.

A golden opportunity missed

Some years ago, in a self-published book written by an American about his frustrating experiences studying martial arts in China, I came across a marvelous potential hook, buried midway through the volume. In a photo caption which bookstore browsers would almost certainly likely miss were the words: “...holding the sword I had to use on the day I left the school.”

I've no recollection of the image it referred to, but the words have stayed in my mind. As soon as I read them, I realized the author should have put them in the book's very first paragraph. Had he done so, he would've hooked a good few readers. They would've said to themselves: “What on Earth happened? Did the author have to fight his way out of the martial-arts school? Who tried to stop him leaving and why? Was blood spilled?”

And they would've continued reading until they found out.

Since then, whenever I'm close to finishing an article, I scour it for potential hooks.