Some time ago I “divorced” the, then, new editor of the “Faith and Values” section in the Sunday edition of Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper. Since he so consistently changed what I had written to, instead, say what he wanted to say (the way he wanted to say it), rather than what I had said (the way I had said it).
I had never encountered this problem before, having written pieces for the “Faith and Values” portion of the Sunday Post and Courier for several years. Nor had I encountered such “editing” over twenty years of writing a weekly newspaper column in the Summerville (SC) Journal-Scene.
Finally, however, when “Letters to the Editor” began to appear in the newspaper condemning me for what I had supposedly written, but hadn’t–not that I am necessarily averse to criticism–I decided to, instead, publish my own weekly blog on my own website (which is what you’re reading) and have now been doing so for the past few years.
Remembering, in this instance, that how we say anything is as important (if not moreso) as what we may be saying.
I actually encountered some of the same circumstances in the process of my 2009 book–Balanced Living: Don’t Let Your Strength Become Your Weakness–being published by Wipf and Stock Publishers in Eugene, Oregon. I found myself having to negotiate with the editor of that book. Since in numerous portions of the book I had written some rather subtle psychological or theological concepts, which the editor seemed not to understand. Not that s/he necessarily should. So when what appeared on the editor’s galley was pretty confusing and just as far removed from what I was saying, I lobbied: “What I’ve written here has to be said exactly the way I’m saying it.”
Except I didn’t want to come off as needing to be unreasonably pampered, so I let some things go, and in the end, I’d say I swapped off about fifty per cent of the book between what I wrote and the way the editor wanted it written.
Recently, I encountered yet another instance of what I’m describing, what I’m calling “Editing as Reverse Plagiarism.”
I was asked, by the editor of a free online publication entitled Baptist Studies Bulletin, to write a book review of a recent autobiography on the part of my beloved church history professor from when I was a seminary student. And I wrote it in a rather personal, conversational tone and style, typical of how I write these weekly blog posting.
Except when the manuscript I had submitted (which you can see for yourself if you scroll down to my April 18 blog posting, “A Book Review”) appeared in the publication, it was notably different from what I had written–particularly in the way I had written it.
When I complained to the editor, he explained why he had edited my submission as he had. Not for length or any technical inaccuracies, but because he preferred a more formal style of writing.
Which was when I explained to him that I considered what he had done as being an example of “editing as reverse plagiarism.”
For example, “plagiarism” is when someone copies what someone else has written and claims such writing to be her/his own. And in the university where I teach, this is such a serious breach of professional ethics that one can even be expelled from the graduate program I teach in for committing such a breach of ethics..
What I’m calling “editing as reverse plagiarism” is when an editor so substantively changes what a writer has submitted, in order for the writing–in content, coherence, tone and style–to conform to the editor’s tastes and preferences, yet claims it is the writing, not of the editor, but of the person who originally wrote and submitted the manuscript.
To illustrate further, in the instance I’m describing, the editor of the Baptist Studies Bulletin emailed me asking me to “except” (rather than “accept”) his apology if he had, in editing my submission, “hurt my feelings.”
I replied, explaining that he had not “hurt my feelings.” That he didn’t have the power to do so. That my feelings belong only to me, and that if I choose to let anyone else “hurt me” (in whatever way), that is my doing, not what someone may have necessarily done to me. In other words, you don’t “hurt my feelings”–however hurtful you may be–unless I let you.
What I explained to him is, of course, essential to anyone’s optimal mental, emotional, moral, spiritual and social health: who is responsible for whom–including one’s behavior, attitude and feelings.
As in a story I pass along in my book. Where a friend disclosed to me that a friend of his had “hurt his feelings” by something he had said. “So I didn’t speak to that guy for over a year,” my friend added. “But then I started feeling guilty for behaving as I was, so I went to my friend and apologized for not speaking to him.”
“To which he replied, ‘Oh, I hadn’t noticed.'”
I did, however, explain to the editor of the Baptist Studies Bulletin something I’m sure he realized: the difference between “except” (to the contrary, excluding what or whomever) and “accept” (embrace). What he apparently didn’t realize–at least in editing what I had written–was that ethical editing confines itself to merely correcting such examples of incorrect grammar/usage. Not re-writing what someone else wrote, yet claiming they did.
