Mistakes!
This may be the most irritating word you often
hear when you are at the corner of your elementary school facing a rather ugly
nose of your teacher. I used to go this way of avoiding a pair of hot eyes (not
that heroine-one) by concentrating on the bumps of a curved nose. This would help me as a two-for-one offer,
getting a cover from the shower of unpleasant words entering my poor little
brain and also making the reputation of accepting my mistakes. However, apart
from those sweet memories, what makes mistakes interesting and a welcome-drink
is a reason for smoking your brain.
There is a long list of people or ‘professionals’
who are interested in others committing mistakes and are eager to help them
(for a minimum service charge!). You will find a lawyer counseling his party, a
doctor diagnosing his patient, an engineer spending his sweat struggling under
machines, a police officer after a terror suspect (even up to stripping!),
and a politician in an active snoop, all
converting the mistakes of the other to
the capital of their pocket. It seems the world continues to breathe by these
mistakes though the term itself is widely condemned by all.
When everyone is sure to make mistakes and there is
someone to benefit from them, why can’t you be the one who gets benefited? You
need not be the one in the list mentioned above to take your share. Go through
the questions given here.
·
Do you read anything even if there is no need to
read?
·
Do you try to understand what you read?
·
Do you get disturbed if you are not able to
understand what you read?
·
Do you search any alternative solution to
understand what is tough before you?
·
Do you feel relaxed and happy when you discover
the mistakes and the missing link?
There you are!
If you got ‘yes’ for all these questions, it’s
time to take the seat of an editor. Being an editor is as scientific as one
machinist dismantles and re-assembles his engine or as funny as a child gets excited
after making a toy out of torn sheets of paper. What you need is a pair of good,
working eyes that fragments a sentence into words or word classes and
defragments them for a melodious reading. Here are some practical pieces of advice if
you like to get baptized to an editor (version 1).
(I am not going to teach you English grammar! It is
better you hire a private tutor if you feel an improvement is needed)
·
Read, split, read!
·
Read as you are the writer.
·
Read as you are a reader of average standard in
English.
·
Find the area where the writer repeatedly makes
mistakes, as it helps you go on more smoothly (You can make it a point of
reference to your writer).
·
Agreement, punctuation, style, and cohesion are
the areas where you need extra care, as other mistakes are easily detected by
your word editor.
·
Do not feel shy to use available tools and help
(a word editing software or a good smart phone).
·
Do not kill style for traditional use of the
language (and vice versa).
·
Give some time for research on the product or
service mentioned in the article if it is for a business audience.
·
Keep a notebook where you can enter a new piece
of information, as each day you will be dumped with a new thing that may be
useful in future.
·
Give a time-gap between your first editing and final
copy. (Though I am not a believer of astronomy, I don’t edit things in a stretch.
Giving a time-gap yields you different insights, angles, and more mistakes that
were hidden in your first editing)
Wish you a nice editing time!
If you have any suggestions or feedback (of course
mistakes too), I am happy to have them in my inbox.
If
you are worried about the mistakes in your creative literature, documents, and
formal releases, you can mail them to my inbox for a free editing*,
provided they don’t take more than three A4 sheets. Please make the font
Calibri with a font size 12. The edited copy will be delivered to you through
the reply mail within a week.
*The free
service is a matter of personal choice and can’t be demanded under any
circumstances.
