The other day I was sub-editing an article on hydropower in China. It was an awful mess and I pretty much rewrote the whole thing, ripping out massive chunks of text and replacing them with more relevant content (under the orders of me editor, of course). However, I generally followed the author's structure.
The reason I am writing about this here is that my editor has just asked me if want a credit as co-author (it is a piece for print). What do you think? In my opinion sub-editors should sit in the shadows. We are often "ghost writers" I find. Is there a hard and fast rule for this? Friends talk to me about the "copy-editors' code", which forbids subbers from taking bylines. Do you know about this?
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteThe other day I was sub-editing an article on hydropower in China. It was an awful mess and I pretty much rewrote the whole thing, ripping out massive chunks of text and replacing them with more relevant content (under the orders of me editor, of course). However, I generally followed the author's structure.
The reason I am writing about this here is that my editor has just asked me if want a credit as co-author (it is a piece for print). What do you think? In my opinion sub-editors should sit in the shadows. We are often "ghost writers" I find. Is there a hard and fast rule for this? Friends talk to me about the "copy-editors' code", which forbids subbers from taking bylines. Do you know about this?