Editing Detective, Kevin Penny

Editing is a skill much like writing and drawing: the more you practise, the better you become. Without editors, we would have top-notch news companies looking like high-school productions. It is imperative to learn a skill such as editing, because if you do not have this skill, then your work can go from looking professional to pathetic with the misplacement of a vowel. For instance:

The Journal shows shoddy editing with a missing 'said' in a lead article

This blurb, taken from the Edmonton Journal, shows that even professional news companies have trouble keeping their articles error free. Granted, this error probably would have been caught before going out into a printed article, but this just shows how different editing for the web can be compared to editing for print; because of the vast amount of content you can place up on the web, it becomes increasingly difficult to make sure every article is perfect.

As said before, great editing comes with lots of practise. A person beginning to learn the skill of editing must understand that no piece of work can be edited to perfection, but hard work and effort can make a difference between reading a professional article or a high-school flyer.