Re: [IAOC] RFC Editor costs - Proofreading (was Re: My view of the IAOC Meeting Selection Guidelines)

[Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch at muada.com>]

On 12 feb 2008, at 0:33, John Levine wrote:

>> That's nonsense. You don't need a degree to use language.

> Of course not, but I can tell you from experience having written quite
> a few books that if you want a set of documents to have a consistent
> readable style, we authors just can't do it.  I think I write just
> fine, but copy edits always, and I repeat ALWAYS, make the writing
> more consistent and readable.

The way I see it, it's not the job of an editor and certainly not a  
copy editor to rewrite significant amounts of text because the author  
has trouble expressing him/herself. Readability and a consistent style  
are the jobs of the author, with guidance from an editor, if any. Copy  
editors work at a lower level by flagging ambiguities and cleaning up  
rough patches in the author's command of the language.
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