Okay, it’s true: every installment in the “Who can benefit from using an editor?” series emphasizes how an editor can help you reach your readers. The “Writing is Thinking” approach is tailored for writers who care about reaching their readers and who recognize that it takes extra work to do so.
But there are two common varieties of scholarly writers who are especially interested in their audiences: The Public Scholar & The Hopeful Candidate.
The Hopeful Candidate
Another type of writer who is audience-aware is the hopeful candidate—scholars hoping to reach the highest-stakes audiences: journal reviewers, hiring committees, admission committees, deans and colleagues.
These audiences are not as different from the general public we might imagine. Even when you are writing to colleagues in your specialty, it is may have been a while since they have read your sources. They are busy scholars themselves managing many commitments, and you can’t count on them to always bring undivided attention and close-reading energy to your writing.
The highest-stakes audiences are typically not the people in your specialty, even when they are scholars in your subject. Spending extra effort to tailor your writing for your reader can pay off. Hiring committees and journal reviewers read stacks of materials full of clunky academic sentences. Clear writing can help your work stand out from the pile.
The hopeful candidate understands that every detail of their writing matters. An editor can help with the details—from each comma placement to every verb in an abstract. When so much depends on your writing, hiring an editor is an investment in your success.
That’s how we need to read, as writers—
VERLYN KLINKENBORG, SEVERAL SHORT SENTENCES ABOUT WRITING, PG 36
Paying attention to the decisions embedded in each sentence,
Decisions visible in the structure of the sentence itself.
What you write—what you send out into the world to be read—
Is the residue of the choices and decisions you make.
Choices and decisions you are responsible for.