How Tutoring at Writing Centers Trained Me for Editing
I spent several years tutoring at campus writing centers (Hollins University as an undergrad, the University of Baltimore as a grad student, and at the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County as an adjunct instructor). I loved being a writing tutor, and in retrospect, that experience was both a big hint of how much I would love editing and good training for becoming an editor, especially because I didn’t come up through the journalism ranks.
Two college students collaborating. Image by Greg Anderson Photography via Flickr.
Here are four reasons why tutoring at a writing center is great training in editing:
Tutors focus first on big-picture elements in the writing and then look at grammar and mechanics later. This mimics the real-world editing process and also highlights a common misconception. Editing and proofreading are two different processes – the first one looks at the overall piece of writing and strengthens the content as much as possible, and then the second is all the polishing. A paper with perfect grammar but no clear thesis is still a crappy paper. It’s easy to get distracted by grammatical errors, perhaps because they may be easier to fix, but that can be a waste of time if parts of the paper need to be revised anyway.
Tutors figure out what the piece of writing needs, which may or may not be what the student says it needs. We’d often have students come in who wanted to check the grammar or style, but while reading the paper aloud, it often became apparent that there were more issues with the paper’s argument, organization, or clarity that needed to be addressed first. Working editors often come across the same issue (probably because, even in the real world, many people aren’t clear on the difference between editing and proofreading). A good tutor listens to the student’s concerns while staying open minded about what to expect when delving into the paper (great practice for working with clients!). They also make sure to address the student’s concerns addressed while also explaining why it’s important to address other issues.
Tutors learn a variety of style guides. While tutoring, I usually came across Turabian (a version of the Chicago Manual of Style), MLA, and APA. Being familiar with different style guides shows how many “rules” in English are actually guidelines. For example: Do you have a comma after and or or in a list (known as the serial or Oxford comma)? How do you show possession for a plural proper noun? Depending on which style guide you’re following, the answer changes. Similarly, although writing tutors tend to come from the humanities, the Hollins writing center always had someone who was a science major on staff because lab reports have a different structure and different conventions than papers in the humanities.
Tutors aren’t the final voice on what happens in the paper. Ultimately, it’s up to the student to change the paper in the way that they think is most appropriate and reflects what the instructor is looking for. Similarly, as an editor, I’m not the person with the byline on the piece of writing. I use my professional knowledge and experience to make changes that I think will make the writing clearer, more engaging, and more accurate, but all of my edits are suggestions, which is why I use track changes or Adobe’s markup tools. The client gets the final say.
If you’re a working editor, how did you get your training?