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[elementalevil]

Okay, so...I don't care to get into the work situation (it is tanking badly), or the friend situation (yay for spending hours in the ER) or really, anything else, except I decided I should "know thy enemy" and applied as a writer to the freelance place

Comments

[christinex1001]

I'm pretty much the same as you, and no one's come down on me for it yet (fingers crossed). I had one article that I almost rejected, but instead I just ended up rewriting huge chunks of it, rated it a 1, and told the writer they really need to work on clarity...you know, leaving out entire words isn't usually the best way to convey information.

Right now I probably send back about 25-30% of the stuff I get for rewrites. I have no idea whether it's a low average or not. It just seems that unless I need clarification on a certain point or a reference fixed or whatever, it's just easier to heavily edit.

Well, at least they were nice in my first review...said it was "an impressive beginning." :-P

And yeah, I poked around in the writers' board a bit, and they are major-league whingers...

[elementalevil]

My reviewer praised my gatekeeping, but said I let a lot of "vague" info slip through. This in itself was kind of vague, but...who knows. People on the boards say most reviews are negative, even for editors who have been there for years. Your impressive beginning would make a lot of them (myself included) turn greeeeeeeeeeeeeen.

It's not that I don't take the job seriously, either; I'm rereading the AP Style Guide and concentrating on information, but...with the caliber of writers they seem to hire, it's just...I dunno. It seems like we get slapped with impossible standards. But I guess that happens a lot with editing these days.

[christinex1001]

No, I totally agree with you that they hire people who aren't very good writers (present company excepted...congratulations!). I try to make things as clean as possible and check their references to make sure they match and that they aren't plagiarizing stuff, but I'm not going to get much more in-depth than that for what they're paying. A couple of times I've called people on stuff just because of my own experience in various fields (sewing and jewelry-making, IIRC), but that's rare.

Just for curiosity's sake, how much do they pay writers per article? I have no desire to do anything but copy edit, but I'm wondering how much some of these people get paid for the turds we have to polish...

[elementalevil]

It's 15/article. And all the writers bitch about those mean old CEs sending stuff back, so we'll see. :D So not too much, but frankly, the company seems to take pride in its "professional writers," so...

(Some of them are quite good. Just...not most.)