Cheryl Hardin Marketing Communications - Writing and Editorial Services

What does an editor do besides add commas?

Good editors are obsessed less with commas, hyphenation, and parallelism than with readers and their ability to understand the written word as effortlessly as possible.

The resident grammarian at Cheryl Hardin Marketing Communications recalls an all-too-true tale.

Writing and Editorial Services
There once was an editor who was tasked to edit the following prolific prose into a concise presentation:

The secret to a successful product launch lies not in the absence of obstacles, but in adhering to the goals. The R&D production team has long held the responsibility of developing a schedule and adherence to it. Irregardless, if the issues are such that the manufacturing line will be required to visually inspect product for the purpose of trouble shooting backwards in excess of the allotted time frame, it may be improperly advisable to advocate that company insures that product delivery will occur third quarter.

The final presentation read:

Product launch is dependent upon production. If production is not delayed, product will ship third quarter.

That message was clear.

Information is everything.

Make each word count.