The Difference Between Writers and Editors

One of the most common occurrences that happens to professional writers and professional editors online is that so many people who actually need one or the other do not fully realize the differences. The fact is that there are many differences between the jobs even if there are not major differences between the professional writer and the professional editor personally as individuals.

Now some of you are going to read that and exclaim that the difference is very clear and easy to see. However, when you get into the actual job descriptions, you may be a little bit surprised. An editor is actually not the one who you should be asking to repair all of your old, recycled and poorly written articles. If you can not find a professional writer to do that work for you, do not expect the editor to come in and clean up the mess that they leave behind.

The fact is that a professional editor is there to edit the works that are written. This includes editing down if the professionally written content is too long, making certain that all of the facts are correct and on occasion, even marking the numerous errors that need to be repaired in poorly written content. Their job has never been to repair all of the errors but rather to mark them so that the writer can repair them.

If the written content is constantly so full of errors that it has to be re-written every time, facts are poorly checked on a consistent basis or there are other recurring errors, the job of the editor may be to fire the writer. The job of the editor has never been to translate a bunch of poorly written materials and turn them into a literary masterpiece no matter what you may think.

If you need someone to rewrite the materials for you, you should be looking for a professional writer and not for an editor. The job of a professional writer is to provide their client with whatever it is that they want. Here is where a lot of writers are going to get upset with this article but the facts remain no matter what people’s opinions may be.

The writer is there to provide the client with what they want … nothing more and nothing less. If the client wants nothing more than keyword stuffed spam to attract spiders and bots while turning off the actual readers, the writer may take it upon themselves to let their client know that this is what it is going to do but if the client does indeed want this, the writer needs to provide it for them.

The writer’s job is not to make up facts to meet somebody’s idea of a great article or story though. Knowingly writing down something that is not true will never help to build your reputation or keep you in business for very long. If you choose to do such work, that is entirely up to you but many writers do (and should) avoid working for people who would even ask such a thing.

The professional writer will take a general concept for an article, figure out what questions need to be answered, start at the beginning and take the reader through to the end with no steps being skipped and no assumptions for better or for worse. If however, you are writing opinions, even a professional writer is entitled to opinions. Just be certain that you mark it in your writing that you know it is an opinion, it is stated as an opinion and it is not meant to be a factual and objective piece of writing.

Despite popular beliefs, words to mean something and there is a reason that they do. If you want to hire someone as a professional editor, be certain that they are qualified but do not expect them to rewrite all of your old poorly written content.

If you hire a professional writer, make certain that they are qualified as well but if your editor lets you know that there are consistent problems with that person, maybe they are not the professional writer that you thought they were and you need to reconsider the type of professional writing services that you need to begin with.