At last an UNFAILING process for identifying genuine editing potential

Overview

Copyediting training is undoubtedly a long process. Hiring someone and training them and then knowing many months later that the person is not a right fit is one of the most frustrating things for an editorial manager. Finding the right person has always been a difficult task, with no known solutions—at least until now. The Art of Copyediting's Foundational Skills training and mentoring program now has a definitive and unfailing solution to this long-standing problem of finding people with genuine copyediting talent.

The process itself is an off shoot of—an unexpected discovery concomitant with—the persistent fine-tuning of the training and mentoring process.

This blog summarizes the journey behind the process and also outlines the advantages for employers, editors, and the publishing services industry in India as a whole.

PART 1

Hiring copyeditors in companies: a personal experience

For over 22 years (1995–2017), when I was working in companies and handling editorial divisions, one recurring need was to hire copyeditors. Right from the earliest days, I was keen on picking up fresh graduates and training them. This did not mean that I did not want lateral entries from other companies. But there were no structured training systems in other companies like the one I had developed, so it didn't really make much of a difference to me. Most of these lateral entries were good at formatting, but they always fell short when it came to editing content.

So, whenever we wanted to hire copyeditors, I looked at only one thing: Were they trainable?

Traits of a potential copyeditor

I knew I could teach formatting to anyone. And every copyediting manager will know that everyone cannot become a copyeditor. Copyediting requires

• a definite love for the English language

• a conscious inclination—an internal drive—to learn the nuances (and this involves serious thinking)

• a dogged persistence to keep on learning despite slow progress.

Some of the best minds would probably have these traits. But people with such traits often took up jobs in other fields that paid much more than what copyediting did. In a way, that was okay, as the learning process itself (and naturally the earning) cannot be speeded beyond a threshold (not matter how much the trainer may try). I used to think—a humorous analogy, I admit—that sprinting horses may not be "editor material," but goats and puppy dogs may very well be!

Selection criterion

So we often had to choose from people who were not necessarily the best. And the only criterion was Who among these may be trainable? Quite naturally, I had a test paper for shortlisting potential copyeditors. Although the paper had many questions, I was mostly interested in a candidate's responses to three questions.

Three favorite questions and the logic behind them

Question 1

The first one—and this was the last question in the test paper—was a writing test. The applicants had to write about themselves—their aims, aspirations, hobbies, achievements, etc. For me, it did not matter what they wrote. I wanted to know just these things:

• Can the person write simple, clear sentences that conveyed a definite thought?

• Are the sentences in a paragraph coherent and logically connected? Do they convey a set of related thoughts?

• When we move from one paragraph to another, is there a definite flow of ideas?

What these things implied for me was this:

• If I gave this person something serious to read (and edit), would the mind be sufficiently focused on the content?

So often the candidate's writing may be a bunch of random thoughts thrown in as sentences and paragraphs. It was easy to identify and reject such candidates.

Question 2

My next favorite question was a small passage to edit. I was curious to see what they did there. I was not much interested in what they missed there, and many postgraduates had told me during personal interviews that they did not know what exactly was meant by editing.

Question 3

My third favorite question was a bunch of individual sentences that were to be corrected for grammar and syntax, if at all necessary.

• This part was important for me, because this is what I discussed with the candidates during personal interviews.

• Their edits may be right or wrong, but I used these sentences to discuss the thought processes behind their edits.

• I used simple logic to explain the errors in those sentences, and carefully observed their body language, facial expressions, and participation in the discussion to note whether a candidate understood my explanations.

Some may be thrilled by the sheer logic of the explanations and may be eager to join (to know whether they would be selected). Some may be inspired by the discussions and say that they would like to take up this line of work. So often I observed enthusiasm, but there was no way of knowing how long that enthusiasm would last.

And some of course had to be rejected.

Post-hiring training and live work

Everyone—and this included both fresh postgraduates and experienced lateral entries—was put through a basic training program for about six months. But they would start working on live files after the first month. Their learning and working on live files went hand-in-hand:

• the list of references

• reference citations

• element identification and styling

• editorial mark up of text (numbers, units scientific conventions, etc.)

• tables, figure legends

• language (content editing)

Those were days when we all worked in the office and training happened daily (or whenever work pressures were not overwhelming). Nevertheless, it was time and live work that showed the mettle of these editors. I still remember those innumerable discussions with one of my managers—I had spotted her as a fresh postgraduate, and she worked with me for 12 years in various companies—who used to tell me which ones were "editor material" and which ones were not. These were the discussions that helped us review our selection/hiring process.

Spectrum of results observed

I knew the practical problems involved. There were times when we couldn't find even a single worthy candidate—not one that I felt could be a good editor. And given the pressure of work, we had to make compromises. And these would show up in later reviews. But even otherwise, no matter how careful I was during the selection process, it was up to the individual to pick up from the training and apply the concepts learned during practice sessions and live work. Here again, the practical reality showed a spectrum:

• Some may understand the concepts, apply them, and move ahead at a steady pace of learning. These were a rare breed of people called editors, quite hard to find.

• Some may understand the concepts and apply them, but they may be slower than others. These were the sure-footed goats: they would outlast many and continue steadily in copyediting.

• Some may understand the concepts but may not have the internal drive to keep thinking and applying them on a daily basis. These were people with potential, but without an inclination for daily editing. They did last beyond 6–12 months.

• Some may find it difficult to understand the concepts, probably because their minds keep working in their earlier grooves and they do not understand the importance of reading sentences in definite ways indicated during the training. These were people who left the field of editing sooner or later.

Practical reality and limitations of the hiring process

The last two groups formed the bulk of the hired and trained editors, and there was a reason why this was so.

Hiring an editor meant identifying the potential AND inclination/drive of the individual. The latter, however, could be known with certainty only some months AFTER hiring. But by that time the company would have lost a lot on time, training effort, and potential revenue (also because of periodic attrition).

PART 2

Now let's move on to a different stage of my life. It started as a platform for training people into professional copyediting but has now evolved a process for identifying potential and genuine editing talent.

The Art of Copyediting

In 2018, I started The Art of Copyediting (AOC). I now offer 31 detailed courses on copyediting—unmatched by any organization or university in the world. About 10 courses are readily available online, and many others are in different stages of digitization.

Initial approach

Because I founded AOC before the pandemic, the approach was to offer courses the way I normally teach: start with the list of references first, attend to other formatting aspects, and then move on to language editing. But as we all know, the Covid pandemic changed the world forever. Companies had (unfortunately) already split copyediting into preediting, style editing, copyediting, language editing (and what more, I do not know). With work from home predominating, the preference was for language editors.

I decided to bring together a set of courses on language editing, which were then available as individual courses. There were also other reasons for this decision. I had offered individual courses on language editing for over two years. But things were quite different in an online learning environment.

• There being no external push, people were not committed to steady learning. I had to nudge people to complete their courses, and some didn't complete them even in six months.

• I also realized that English is still a foreign language in India, that online training alone will NEVER work unless it is combined with mentoring (which happened naturally when we were all going physically to the office).

The Foundational Skills program

I decided to offer a program that could help any (potential or experienced) editor

• learn something substantial in a short period of time

• get the best possible foundation for an editorial life

• gain at least a two-year head start over anyone who has not undergone any formal training.

To achieve this, I decided to offer four courses together as a three-month training and mentoring program. I decided to call it Foundational Skills for Employability and Earning (FSEE). Participants had to learn from recorded video lessons every day and attend online mentoring sessions twice a week.

When I launched this in mid-2022, the idea was to give an editor the best possible foundation in the shortest possible time.

Over the years, I fined-tuned the program repeatedly—to such a degree that it has almost reached a level of perfection. In the process, I also gained some unparalleled insights into finding a potential editor. The immediate implication of this is that the FSEE program can be a powerful filtration process for identifying potential and genuine copyediting talent.

PART 3

Basic qualifications necessary for entering the copyediting profession

One can specify two basic qualifications for entering the editorial profession:

• A professional understanding of essential principles of writing

• An understanding of restrictive and nonrestrictive elements.

Ideally, the second would be a part of the first in any international approach. But most people do not understand it that way in India. In fact, most copyeditors in India will talk about restrictive–nonrestrictive elements, but most have a hazy understanding of it (which can be dangerous), and very few have a clear understanding of it.

Understanding restrictive–nonrestrictive elements is fundamental to written English.

• It is one of the most brilliant conventions in the English language.

• At a basic level, it helps to differentiate the essential and nonessential elements in a sentence.

• At a deeper level, it lays down the principles for writing or reading a sentence. Without this understanding, it is pointless for anybody to call themselves an editor (as they may never be able to understand anything correctly without this understanding).

• It's not optional. It's not advanced. It's fundamental to written English.

• Most of Indian editing happens without this knowledge, which means we don't understand sentences correctly.

  • Which is why academic/scholarly editing from India is still not respected internationally.

  • Which is why Indian editing (editorial work outsourced to India) is paid so low.

What the FSEE program teaches (and how)

The FSEE program uses a unique approach to build a base for a professional understanding of written English.

• It covers over 200 principles of written English (used in both writing and editing).

• It uses logic—not grammar—as the primary approach to understanding sentences.

  • Grammar is taught at the end of the program—to connect logical understanding with important grammatical terms that may help in conversation/communication with peer groups.

• It uses just 14 functional components to analyze (and reconstruct/edit) ANY sentence written in the English language

• It uses color-coding to visually identify the functional components (invaluable at the learning stage).

• It uses universally observable structural patterns in sentences, which together may account for all the simple, compound, and complex sentences one may ever see.

  • These patterns are grouped as Types 1, 2, 3, etc., and a, b, c, etc. are used for the subtypes within each.

• These patterns in turn indicate the parts within each sentence and the relationship between the parts that give the sentence its definitive meaning. This is summarized by a set of patterns that indicate what is called the sentence signature.

• Sentence analysis is so simple but thorough that one can prove whether a sentence is correct or incorrect (and edit as appropriate).

• The overall method is simple but powerful. Someday, the West may understand how profound this approach is over the common grammatical approach to understanding written English.

The FSEE program completion certificate

Anyone who fulfills the following criteria is eligible for a course completion certificate:

• Steady learning of all the four courses in the program

• At least 80% attendance (for the mentoring sessions)

• Intelligent interactions during sentence discussions (which imply application of concepts leaned, and form the essence of the learning in the mentoring sessions)

• Returning program exercises on time and learning from the feedback

• Progress in learning at every stage of the program

How FSEE participants respond

The system is so transparent that participants respond in the most natural ways possible.

• It may be surprising, but a few participants do quit the program within the 3rd/4th sessions. This cannot be ignored, as it seems to happen in many batches.

  • Perhaps because people are (mentally) so isolated these days, many editors do not seem to know that copyediting is a profession where their egos will be hounded, pounded, and pulverized. (Nobody has to do anything; editors interacting with each other will automatically experience all these things.) But at the training stage, all these have not even started.
  • I even suspect that some intellectuals take up training with some peculiar false beliefs—that the mentor must pamper and protect their egos simply because they're doing a favor to the mentor by taking up the training. Some are so sensitive that they can't even take basic instructions (part and parcel of a training and mentoring program).

  • Some may not be ready even to learn from the recorded video lessons. Some may realize that even apostrophe use (particularly the case-by-case analysis) is too much for their understanding.

  • When people leave so early, there is invariably no discussion, no communication; they simply stop attending. Communication attempts generally fail.

  • I would assume that these people may never really fit in the copyediting field. They may have joined without even knowing what copyediting meant, or simply because the program was offered at a great discount.

• For many, the first course is like a honeymoon: they enjoy it thoroughly. But understanding issues show up during the rest of the program. The reasons for these can be any of the following:

  • They do not have the ability to listen and learn from the recorded lessons (as the level of thinking required is much higher from the second month).

  • Even if they understand, they may feel that the demands on the thinking process are beyond their bandwidth or comfort zone.

    • Some quit the program when they realize that such serious thinking is not their cup of tea.

    • Some quit during the second month, and some at the beginning the third month.

    • Some linger till the end, possibly because they feel they have paid the program fees and should get whatever they can.

    • Often, these are people who do not have the maturity, focus, or discipline to play, listen, and learn from the video lessons.

    • Without some theoretical knowledge and an inclination to apply them in practice, mentoring sessions can never yield results.

    • Those who linger till the end, do not ask for a certificate, as they know that they have not fulfilled the criteria. (Most may not work on/return the exercises given to them, either because they don't have the drive or they know their own shortcomings.)

• A small number of participants (just one or two in a batch) may have the love for the language as well as the inclination and tenacity to learn.

  • These would work on the exercises given to them and learn from the individual feedback (real copyeditor material).

  • Some will pick up quickly from the feedback (the best ones).

    • They may be awed by all that they learned and are simply happy to receive the certificate.

    • Some may be so thankful for what they learned that they may not even care for a certificate. They may rather write a review on the training program (all of which are posted on The Art of Copyediting website).

  • Some will struggle to understand the feedback, but still learn, nonetheless (slow, sure-footed goats).

    • These are people who have potential and have to be encouraged.

    • They will receive the certificate if they are patient, learn from the feedback, and complete the exercises.

PART 4

The necessity for filtration BEFORE one joins the copyediting profession

Copyediting in India is not something we can talk about with pride in an international setting. And that is because Indian copyediting can still not stand up to international standards.

International academic publishers have their own standards, but they have been forced to compromise on copyediting quality, as they moved toward outsourcing and cost-cutting. No doubt India gained in the process, but we never managed to capitalize on that.

Now with so many people working from home (or remotely, as it is now fashionably called), almost every editor is now a freelance editor working for a multinational company (MNC) or a publisher within India, or both. Earlier the two streams were different, with the MNCs maintaining a much higher standard, often dictated by international publishers. But now, with almost no structured training in MNCs for over a decade, they advertise for "experienced" copyeditors, and pick up people left, right, and center. The overall quality of copyediting has decreased so drastically that anyone sitting at home now thinks that he or she can become a copyeditor.

India desperately needs a filtration process where only people with potential skill AND inclination are allowed into the copyediting field. (Companies should know by now that using AI for copyediting is just an illusion that they soon have to move past; it's time to hold steadfast to actual intelligence.)

Practical reality of the differences between India and the West

Even at the turn of the century (just 25 years ago), copyediting was primarily a freelance profession in the West, although many companies still had in-house editors. It worked (and still works) well there—let's for the time being ignore the confusions caused by the advent of AI—as English is the native tongue in those parts of the world. So, by and large there is an inherent standard built into the editorial output of the West.

In contrast, we have around 20 official languages in India (and over 120 dialects among these), and people constantly translate things mentally from some language to English. Such a scenario can never be conducive for copyediting at an international level. For this to work, we must have people who can think and understand in the English language, whatever be their mother tongue.

And this is why the filtration process becomes all the more important in India.

The FSEE program as a filtration process

When a person has an FSEE program completion certificate from The Art of Copyediting, it simply means that the person is real "copyeditor material." Such a person has the potential to master language editing if they continue to practice what they have learned in the Foundational Skills program.

The FSEE program completion certificate can therefore serve as a filtration mechanism for identifying people with genuine copyediting potential.

Reproducibility and unfailing nature of the filtration process

When AI burst into the scene and started passing legal and medical tests, teachers were soon asking one obvious question: How do we now test candidates to find out if they have real skill? One common answer emerged, and it was this: Candidates could be tested orally, and the teachers and mentors could have oral discussions with the students to know how much the latter understood the subject under consideration.

The Art of Copyediting Foundational Skills training and mentoring program does NOT test people using a single test. Rather, it has some brilliant aspects that tests an editor's understanding in various ways.

• The participants have to learn from recorded video lessons, where concepts are explained in great detail.

  • This tests their ability to listen and understand, as well as their patience to stop, go back, and listen to something that they did not understand.

• During the mentoring sessions, the participants are taught how to apply the concepts learned and are asked to apply them repeatedly on different sentences (during real-time discussions).

  • This tests their openness during discussions as well as their ability to apply concepts practically.

  • You can compare this to the discussion methodology often used in MBA selection processes.

  • Many editors may be shy by nature, but they cannot run away from editorial discussions.

• This is followed by asking them to edit a few sentences, on which individual feedback is given.

  • This tests their ability to understand the feedback given to them (which is unique despite the commonalities) and apply them correctly (or in a better way) in the next set of sentences

  • This is done repeatedly till the whole exercise is completed.

• This is then followed up with a passage having many paragraphs.

  • This reiterates and tests their application of concepts after the important concepts have been learned.

  • They also learn the concept of skim reading and understand how useful this can be in the editing process.

It is this repeated application of concepts on different sentences (each followed by feedback, learning, and reapplication) that strengthens the learning process and establishes the success of the training methodology.

That is why the process is UNFAILING in terms of identifying potential talent.

Post-FSEE practice exercises

When a participant receives an FSEE program completion certificate, it implies that he or she has an indisputable editing potential. The only thing necessary to establish that potential is that he or she continues to practice what they have learned in the FSEE program.

With most people working remotely, the chances of peer interaction are minimal (or almost none). The loss of peer interaction also means that the individual must have a tremendous drive to continue practicing what one has learned; otherwise, the knowledge gained may also wane away soon. To help editors continue practicing the principles, The Art of Copyediting has also come up with post-FSEE practice exercises/sessions. Copyeditors can take up these at a nominal fee, work on these, and receive insights for building self-confidence and moving toward credibility.

Post-FSEE practice exercises can be a great boon to copyeditors who have completed the FSEE program successfully.

Other FSEE participants

It may be obvious that we need not concern ourselves with people who drop out of the FSEE program midway. But what about those who stay on till the end but do not qualify to earn the program completion certificate?

Logically speaking, these are people who do not qualify to enter the field of writing/editing—even if they have been in the field of editing for many years. If they have established their credibility over the years, experienced copyeditors may not need yet another proof of their ability. But for most people, it is their lack of confidence in what they are doing that drives them to take up the FSEE program. Having taken it up, if they still do not pick up the main principles of writing/editing, it simply implies that they may not be the right fit, or they still have a long way to go.

In general, people who do not qualify for the FSEE program completion certificate—both young and experienced editors—do not qualify as "editor material." It is just like passing your TOEFL, IAS, IPS, JEE, or NEET and qualifying to enter a particular profession.

Editing is also a profession in its own right, and quite naturally requires a filtration process to let only qualified people enter the profession. The Art of Copyediting has, after 30+ years of effort, created a reliable and unfailing method of filtration.

It must be mentioned that those who do not qualify can always try again. In our case, these aspirants must develop a good reading habit, spend more time trying to understand what they read, and try thinking in English whenever they think in terms of work. If they can develop such traits, they can always make another attempt to gain the FSEE program completion certificate.

PART 5

The short time-frame of the filtration process

Editorial training takes years; so a three-month training and mentoring program is really a small time-frame. And to be able to spot genuine copyediting talent within a three-month window is a real jackpot.

Compare this with the approach described at the beginning of this piece: Imagine trying for 6–12 months and then realizing that the person may not be a right fit.

The problem is that there are practical limitations in terms of how much a human brain can absorb, connect, and retain. For example, if we take the same FSEE program and try to cram it within two months, it simply will not work. Human beings will need some time to learn and process a piece of information and then add more to it in a cumulative way.

That way, the three-month time-frame to identify genuine copyediting potential is a real breakthrough in comparison with traditional approaches to the problem.

And now, with companies leaving learning completely to the individual (and wanting only "experienced" copyeditors), a sure-shot method of identifying genuine talent within a three-month window can be a gamechanger for the industry.

What an AOC FSEE certificate can mean for employers

Possible changes in the publishing services industry

An FSEE certificate can actually be the basis for a whole lot of changes in the publishing services industry in India. Some of these are outlined below.

As mentioned quite earlier, it is possible to teach formatting to anybody. Content editing, on the other hand, cannot be done by everybody. So, when we have upfront a person with content editing potential, the scenario in the entire industry can change completely.

Such a person will be able to understand reference styling, file formatting, and style aspects more easily, and learn all of them in a reasonable time. All this would mean that we will NOT need

• 3-4 people (preeditors, style editors, copyeditors, language editors) to do the job;

• a separate QC (when a proper workflow is established, as everything will now be done by one copyeditor—which is actually the ideal situation).

This alone can cut down so much on recurring expenses (including attrition and rehiring at those levels). And because of the phenomenal cost-cutting, copyeditors can probably be paid better salaries (instead of constantly driving them to look for better prospects beyond the company). This in turn can mean

• a more stable editorial division

• better and satisfying work standards

• a possibility of better revenue (because of better editorial capability)

• a real possibility of gradually gaining higher-level copyediting jobs (and still better revenue)

Immediate implications for employers

Employers can now

• look for editors with an FSEE program completion certificate (as a base credential)

• put their existing editors through the FSEE program to know who among them are worth what they are paid (and who among them can be replaced by editors with genuine potential)

We've spent over three decades trying to find the right candidate for copyediting, and have broken down copyediting to silly task divisions in the process. It is high time we set this right and moved in the right direction.

What the AOC FSEE certificate can mean for copyeditors

The FSEE program not only provides training and mentoring of the highest order to copyeditors; it also serves to filter the wheat from the chaff—to distinguish people with genuine talent from the also-ran group.

It may be obvious from all the above that the biggest gainers of The Art of Copyediting FSEE program would be employers. After all, who wouldn't want genuinely qualified people for their company?

Copyeditors would therefore be better off to strive to gain an FSEE program completion certificate.

• You will learn things that you will forever be thankful for.

• You will be confident of your editing skills and not intimidated by anyone.

• With an AOC FSEE certificate, employers would recognize you as one with genuine editing potential.

• You will have an edge over others with no formal training.

• You will be able to negotiate better with an AOC certificate than without it.

I know—I hear the question at the back of your mind that you're hesitating to ask. You want to ask me this: Would copyeditors now be forced to go in for a certificate?

Look at this this way. For way too many years, editors have tried to lie low, be part of a faceless group, and have managed to survive. Companies also accepted this, as there was no way of identifying real potential (until now). With AI also now disrupting everything on the planet, editors will have no option but to learn. Also remember that as an editor, you're always competing with intellectuals. Intellectuals have a big ego, and so they generally try to present themselves as smarter than the others. But in the end, only the ones with real knowledge will be able to survive.

When a method of identifying talent is available, which company wouldn't want to take advantage of it? From now on, both MNCs and Indian publishing houses may start preferring only qualified people.

So either way, the only way forward is to learn. It's not just a certificate to show to others, but acquiring real knowledge that will help you understand what you're doing day-in and day-out, as well as gaining confidence every step of the way. The AOC FSEE certificate is thus a worthwhile step to gaining acceptance and moving toward credibility.

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