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My first question relates to your resume. Your areas of
specialization include medicine and nursing in addition to
anthropology and sociology. When you edit a document on
medicine as opposed to a document on humanities or arts,
do you follow a different process?
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Well, I would say that overall my editing process is the
same, because I focus on areas such as punctuation, grammar,
and readability of the paper, whether it's on medicine or
sociology.
However, I would probably ask more content-related questions
while editing a medical paper, simply because the
developments in the field of medicine are tremendous, and in
some areas I would not be able to follow some of the
technical details. So, if there are issues involving the
clarity of the presentation, I try to provide some pointers
if I can, but sometimes I can only mark the unclear passage
and ask the authors to try to rework it.
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When it comes to authors writing on sociology or
anthropology, you can normally detect their overall style,
whereas medical or technical documents tend to be more
curt and to the point. What do you think?
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Well, I agree with you. Medical papers are written in a very
factual style, because the information must be conveyed
clearly, using an established format. So, when preparing an
article for submission to a medical journal, authors need to
organize their thoughts within the particular framework of
the journal and maintain a consistent style. When I edit, I
always try to maintain the author's style rather than
imposing my own. So, if the article is a technical paper and
the author has a particular style, I will not interfere with
that style. I will only try to clean up any errors and see
that the rules of grammar are followed.
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You have extensive experience editing papers by
non-native English speakers. What are the things that
non-native speakers, especially Japanese authors, should
keep in mind when they write papers in English?
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One of the things I have observed is that many non-native
authors write very long sentences. It's usually much easier
for a reader to understand the content of a sentence when
it's short and to the point. Extremely long sentences are
often constructed from two or more short sentences that have
been strung together. When I think the reader's
comprehension of a passage would be improved, I'll suggest
ways in which the author can break up these long sentences
into shorter statements that build on each other to present
the author's point.
Some authors write long paragraphs, with lots of supporting
information, at the end of which they condense their main
point into a single statement. When a paragraph is filled
with supporting data, this type of statement may be more
effective if placed at the beginning of the paragraph. This
orients the reader to the main point that will be developed
in the rest of the paragraph. So, rather than starting at
one point and working through a series of statements to a
conclusion, it may be better to make the main point
available to the reader at the beginning, and then follow
with the supporting information.
With Japanese authors in particular, a major issue is
working with definite and indefinite articles (the, a, and
an) because English articles don't have exact equivalents in
Japanese. So, authors are often uncertain about which
article to use in a particular instance. There are
grammatical rules for using the definite versus an
indefinite article, but other decisions, such as when to use
and when to omit articles, are more subjective and can only
be learned with experience.
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You have handled a number of rush assignments, once even
a 16,000-word pharmacology document in a single day. Do
such assignments challenge your skills? Do you handle them
differently?
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I would say that my process is always the same. I don't
think of editing a document until I have a sense of the
whole thing. Usually, I look through the copy to the end so
that I can see where the author is starting and where he or
she is trying to get to. But I am particularly careful with
assignments that have really close deadlines. Sometimes I
don't really understand some of the issues being addressed
until I've worked halfway through the paper. Then I suddenly
realize what the author is trying to say in the abstract.
When I don't have much time for an edit, I try to identify
the major points that are being discussed, so that I have
the maximum possible information in my head when I go on to
edit.
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Is editing always a good learning experience?
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Yes, the thing I like about editing is that I am always
learning something. There have been some interesting
assignments for which I would like to commend the authors'
efforts, such as those discussing the development of new
drugs, which will ultimately help all of humanity. There are
many such moments when you feel that you are really
contributing something beyond the simple correction of text.
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Is that one reason why you decided to become an editor?
Did it just happen or was it a conscious choice?
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I'm not sure if I really thought of being an editor. I have
always been interested in the English language. In fact,
English literature was one of my majors in college; I've
always loved books and I wanted to work with something that
had to do with writing. I enjoy learning about a variety of
subjects, and editing has given me an opportunity to keep
expanding my knowledge about diverse topics. This is what
has kept me interested in editing over all these years.
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Could you tell me about your academic background and your
work experience in general?
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I am a double major in English and sociology. I started as
an English major but I enjoyed sociology so much, and I took
so many courses, that I ended up with another major! Once I
got out of college, I worked for a law publisher for three
years. They published books on tax law, which were quite dry
and not particularly interesting.
When an opportunity came up to join a medical publisher, I
jumped at the chance. My sister is a physician, a kidney
specialist, and owing to her, I had an interest in medicine
and health. So, I pursued
medical editing, and from there I went on to general science and other
areas. I have worked in many capacities within publishing -
I've been a production editor, a managing editor for a large
textbook publisher, and a development editor. I eventually
decided to work as a freelance editor because I wanted to
have some control over my schedule.
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Does editorial feedback really help authors? Do you agree
with the concept of providing explanations for some
changes you make in a text, like the remarks file that we
have?
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Yes, I think that this type of feedback is very important.
Especially with non-native English authors, I sometimes try
to provide an explanation of why I've made a change so they
understand it is not arbitrary but is based on either rules
of grammar or my experience of the topic.
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