Literary editing: goals and objectives, basic methods. Editing aids

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Literary editing is a process that helps convey the thoughts of the authors of works to the reader, facilitate understanding of the material and remove unnecessary elements and repetitions from it. All this and many other interesting facts will be discussed in this article.

For more clarity

Literary editing can be compared to the action of a microphone used by an artist performing on stage. Such processing of the material is designed to enhance the effect produced on the reader by one or another work published in the printed publication.

A remarkable fact from the history of literary text editing is that when preparing the material of the first books for publication, the works did not pass through the hands of specialists with education in the field of linguistics. Initially, the function of checking the material was performed by the typographer. A separate position appeared along with the advent of the first newspapers and magazines. In those days, the editor often took on the function of a censor. The word "editor", which has come to be used to refer to the newprofession, was taken from the Latin language and denotes a person who puts in order what is written by authors, sometimes without a philological education.

Similar concepts

Editing text is often confused with proofreading, that is, correcting grammatical errors and typos. In reality, this process is the elimination of shortcomings of a different nature.

A literary editor pays attention to such issues as stylistic inaccuracies (incorrect use of phraseological units, individual words, and so on), imperfection of the literary form, shortening of the text, removal of repetitions, elimination of logical and semantic errors.

These activities will be discussed separately below.

Stylistic editing

This includes the replacement of words that are uncharacteristic for a given style of speech (literary, journalistic, colloquial) with more suitable ones. Such editing often takes place in the publication of various interviews, newspaper articles written by non-professional journalists. Expressions that have a sharp, emotional character are also replaced with more neutral ones.

In the Russian language, as in many others, there are many so-called set expressions, that is, phrases that are usually used not in a direct sense, but in a figurative one. During literary editing, specialists make sure that all such phrases are entered into the text correctly. Examples of incorrect use of set expressions can be found, for example, intexts written by non-native authors.

Also, many phenomena have several synonyms for their designation. Although the meanings of such vocabulary items are the same, their connotations are different, that is, they can have different colors. For example, the word "terrible" in the sense of "very" is commonly used in colloquial speech and in some journalistic genres, but it is not suitable for non-fiction. And if it appears in a scholar's manuscript, the editor should replace it with a more appropriate synonym.

Editing literary form

This stage of work is also extremely important, since a well-executed division of the text into chapters greatly simplifies its reading, contributes to the rapid assimilation and memorization of information. Most people are known to finish reading a book with smaller chapters faster than volumes with larger sections.

Also literary editing may consist in changing the places of some paragraphs of the work. For example, if the editor is working on an advertising article or other material aimed at making a strong emotional impact on the reader, it is best to place the brightest parts of the text at its beginning and end, since the human psyche has the following feature: it is always remembered best first and last fragment.

Logic

The tasks of literary editing also include control over the fact that everything written does not go beyond common sense and elementary logic. The most common in this area arethe following errors: substitution of theses and non-compliance with the rules of argumentation.

It would be helpful to consider each of these logical flaws in a separate chapter.

As in a joke

There is such an anecdote. They ask an old highlander: “Why is there such clean air in the Caucasus?” He replies: “An ancient beautiful legend is dedicated to this. A long time ago, a beauty lived in this area. The bravest and most dexterous horseman in the village fell in love with her. But the girl's parents decided to marry her off to someone else. The dzhigit could not endure this grief and threw himself from a high cliff into a mountain river. They ask the old man: “Dear, why is the air clean?” And he says: “Probably because there are few cars.”

So, in the story of this elderly highlander, there was a substitution of theses. That is, as proof of a certain statement, arguments are given that have nothing to do with this phenomenon.

Sometimes this technique is used by writers on purpose, in order to mislead readers. For example, often food manufacturers advertise their product, citing as its advantages the absence of any harmful substance in it. But if you look at the composition of similar products from other brands, you will notice that these products do not contain such a component.

But as a rule, reputable media do not use such tricks in order not to undermine their authority. It is known that the stricter the editorial staff treats the published materials, the higher the quality of the articles, and hence the prestige of thepublications.

Sure Proof

Also, in literary editing, specialists usually check fragments where the author provides proof of something for the presence of three components. Any such statement must necessarily contain a thesis, that is, the very thought that should be accepted or refuted, as well as arguments, that is, provisions proving the presented theory.

Besides this, the course of reasoning must be given. Without it, the thesis cannot be considered proven. First of all, such a requirement must be observed when publishing scientific papers, but it is desirable to fulfill it in other literature, then the material will look convincing and all statements will not seem unfounded to readers.

Speaking of scientific publications, it is worth noting that when publishing such works, the texts necessarily undergo another type of editing. It is called scientific. In such a check, specialists from the field to which the work in question is devoted are involved. When publishing literature that is not related to the field of academic science, articles are also checked for reliability of the data. In such cases, the author must provide the sources from which the information was taken (they serve as proof of his words). If there are any dates and figures in the material, then all of them will certainly be checked against those indicated in the source.

Exceptions

Editing literary works often consists only of correcting grammatical errors and correcting typographical errors. This is especially true for the publication of classical works. Many modern writers set a mandatory condition for publishing houses: not to edit their creations. For example, the publication of a book of memoirs by Maya Plisetskaya cost without the intervention of specialists in philology.

Most often this practice occurs in the West, where there is a widespread belief among writers that their works should be published in their original form.

From history

Literary text editing as a scientific discipline, which is taught at the faculties of journalism, appeared in the second half of the fifties of the twentieth century. Then, due to the ever-increasing volume of printed matter, the country needed a large number of highly qualified specialists in this field, which could only be provided by the introduction of specialized education.

What do literary editors learn?

Before answering this question, it is necessary to clarify once again what the essence of the work of these specialists is.

Many experts say that the activities of the editor can be divided into two large parts.

Firstly, these publishing house employees are working to eliminate inaccuracies in the presentation of specific dates and figures. And also, work is underway to correct the titles and analyze the relevance of this topic, its interest and usefulness for modern readers.

Secondly, the editor must be able to assess the degree of political correctness of the author's statements.

To perform these functions, future specialists, of course, need to study general subjects that are among the sciences of man andsociety, such as economics, political science, psychology, etc.

Special knowledge, skills and abilities

The second point of editors' activity is the actual philological component of the publishing process.

What specific skills should editors have? First of all, such work is associated with the constant reading of a large amount of textual information. Therefore, employees should develop the skills of speed reading and special review of articles aimed at identifying and eliminating copyright shortcomings.

Also, editors need special knowledge of the style of the Russian language and the peculiarities of literary composition.

An overview of some of the subtleties of such work can be useful not only for editors, but also for journalists, copywriters and representatives of other professions, whose activities are associated with the constant writing of large volumes of text material. All members of these professions self-edit to some extent before submitting written material to a publisher.

Concretization of the topic

Both literary editing of other people's texts and work on your own material may require certain skills, the main ones of which will be discussed below.

The first thing an editor usually does when working on a work is to determine the relevance and correctness of the choice of topic, guided primarily by the expected interest of readers in it.

Experts talk aboutthat the work should fully disclose the topic to which it is devoted. Materials that cover a fairly wide range of issues are less popular with readers than those whose topic is formulated very clearly. This is due to the fact that the reader, as a rule, is looking for some specific information in the literature. Thus, a work with a clearly defined theme is easier to find its reader.

Concise or detailed?

Following the choice of topic, the question usually arises of the proper way of presenting information. In addition to style, it is worth considering here how verbose the author should be when writing a work. In this regard, there are two approaches to writing texts. The first is called the expressive method. It consists in using a fairly large set of stylistic expressiveness, such as epithets, metaphors, and so on. Each thought in such an essay is revealed as fully as possible. The author considers the issue from different points of view, while most often taking the side of one of them.

This approach is suitable for large newspaper articles, fiction and some genres of advertising journalism. That is, it is acceptable in cases where the author and the editors set themselves the goal of influencing not only the mind of their audience, but also evoke certain emotions in people.

There is also another method of presentation. It is called intensive and consists in a concise, concise presentation of the material. As a rule, minor details are omitted in such texts, and the author does notuses such a rich set of stylistic means as is the case with the choice of the first version of the presentation.

This method is ideal for scientific and reference literature, as well as small informative articles.

It is worth saying that the choice of one of these types is not always dictated only by creative considerations and is associated with work on the artistic side of the work.

Often one style or another is chosen depending on the amount of printed characters that is allocated to a given material. Although this parameter is usually determined depending on the appropriateness of using a detailed or brief summary of a particular topic.

Different types

Literary editing, despite the mandatory presence in this work of some common points, there are several types. If you study the services offered by various publishing houses, then, as a rule, you can find about four types of such work in them. Next, we will dwell briefly on each of them.

Subtraction

This view is aimed at surface processing of author's material. Here we are talking only about correcting the most gross stylistic errors. These services are usually provided to authors working in the genre of fiction.

Edit

This type of literary editing consists in the compositional improvement of the text, the elimination of stylistic errors. This type of work of literary editors is the most common and in demand. It is used in various print and electronic media.information.

Abbreviation

This editing option is appropriate in cases where the text contains a large number of small details, unimportant details that make it difficult to understand the main idea. Also, this type of editing can also be used when publishing collections consisting of works by one or more authors, for example, school anthologies in literature. In such books, many works are printed in abbreviated form or certain passages are taken.

Remake

Sometimes the editor has to not only correct individual errors and correct inaccuracies, but also completely rewrite the entire text. This work option is extremely rare, but you still need to know about its existence.

In her book Literary Editing, Nakoryakova says that this type of editing is often used only by inexperienced editors. Instead, the author recommends more frequent reworking of only some unsuccessful fragments.

In her manual "Literary Editing" Nakoryakova pays great attention to the ethical side of the relationship between publishers and authors.

She writes that, ideally, each correction should be agreed with the creator of the work. The editor needs to convince the author that the errors he points out make it difficult for the reader to perceive the material presented. To do this, he needs to be able not only to correct the shortcomings, but also to explain what exactly the error is, and why that option,offered by a publisher employee is more advantageous.

In the manual "Literary Editing" K. M. Nakoryakova says that if a specialist works, taking into account the above requirements, then his work not only does not cause hostile feelings in the author, but also deserves gratitude. The compiler of this textbook argues that the profession of an editor is creative, which means that such specialists can implement their own ideas in their work. But in no case should they contradict the intentions of the author. Nakoryakova warns: the opinion that the more corrections the editor makes in the author's text, the better the result, is erroneous. In such an occupation, the main thing is not to succumb to the emerging desire to remake some parts of the material, guided only by one's own aesthetic taste. In particular, when working on the style of the text, it is necessary to distinguish incorrectly used words and expressions from the original phrases specially used by the author.

Also, the compiler of this manual mentions that in practice it is not always possible to coordinate each edit of the editor with the creator of the work. This is due to the tight deadlines in which it is sometimes necessary to write a paper. This happens especially often in the media. Ideally, the activity of the author should be consistent with the editors at every stage of writing a work: when choosing a topic, determining the style of a future essay, and so on. An example of such cooperation can be found in the generally accepted principle of writing scientific papers, whenthe manager constantly monitors the process.

The place of the editor in the workflow

Another popular textbook on this subject is the textbook "Styling and Literary Editing" by Maksimova V. I. In it, the author also touches on the problem of the relationship of employees in the process of creating a text. But, unlike Nakoryakova, Maximov considers not the psychological aspects, but the role of the editor in conveying information to the reader.

Maximov gives in his book a scheme of interaction between the author and the audience, according to which the link between them is the text. The editor occupies a place equivalent to him. That is, the purpose of literary editing is to facilitate communication between the creator of the work and those for whom the information is intended. By the way, the word "reader" in the specialized literature on this issue refers not only to the consumer of printed matter, but also to the viewer, radio listener and other representatives of the audience of various media.

Maximov also mentions this feature of the literature on editing in his book. This textbook also contains information on the style of the Russian language, discusses the features of various genres. It is no coincidence that this book is called Stylistics and Literary Editing.

Maximov V. I. is not the first scientist who turned to the problems of stylistics. The books of some of his predecessors are also worth mentioning. One of these scientists is D. E. Rosenthal. "Guide toLiterary Editing" by this author rightfully takes its place among the outstanding works on this topic. In his book, the linguist devotes many chapters to the rules and laws of Russian language stylistics, without knowledge of which, in his opinion, editing is impossible. In addition to the Handbook of Literary Editing, Rosenthal also wrote numerous manuals for schoolchildren and students. These books are still considered one of the best Russian language manuals.

The Handbook of Spelling, Pronunciation and Literary Editing, published during the life of the scientist, has not lost its relevance, and it is currently being produced in large numbers.

Other literature

Among other manuals for editors is the book by I. B. Golub "Handbook of Literary Editing". In it, the author pays considerable attention to the technical side of the issue, expresses his point of view on the processes of editorial proofreading of the material, literary editing, and much more.

The book by L. R. Duskaeva "Stylistics and literary editing" is also interesting. It, among other things, pays attention to modern technical means that facilitate this work.

From all of the above, we can conclude that in our country for more than half a century, work has been underway to train professional literary editors.

As a result of this activity, a significant amount of special literature was published (for example, another manual by I. B. Golub"Literary Editing" and other books).