Do editors need to be certified?

That’s a question that keeps popping up in online editors and writers groups. As you can imagine, there’s no consensus on this matter. Some argue that obtaining certification from a respected school or professional organization is an invaluable asset for an editor. Certification demonstrates that you’ve successfully completed a course of study and can provide clients with a higher level of editing proficiency than someone who hasn’t been certified. Others, including many who have worked as an editor (copy, line, developmental), argue that although certification is beneficial and may give you an edge over other editors, it’s not necessary to be a competent and successful editor. And for many, the high cost of many editorial certification programs is a barrier.

As someone who works as a freelance editor, I can draw on my experience regarding this issue.

But first, we need to specify what we mean by certificates and certification. They actually are two different types of credentials. According to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), a certificate requires you to complete a training or education program and achieve its learning outcomes.  Colleges, universities, government agencies, employers, and trade organizations offer certificates in editing. However, you don’t have to demonstrate ongoing competence or renew the certificate. For certification, a professional standard-setting body will assess your competence according to that profession’s specific criteria. A certification program grants the certification when you demonstrate that you meet the competence criteria. Unlike someone who attains a certificate, the certification recipient must renew the certification through continued assessment and competence demonstration.

It’s much more time consuming and expensive to receive certification than obtain a certificate in editing. I have one of the latter, from Poynter News Organization/American Copy Editors Society (ACES). I successfully completed the editing course and met its learning outcomes. It’s nice to have this credit on my resume and promotional materials. But I’ve found that my previous work experience has been a much greater asset to my editing career. Before I retired from full-time employment to become a freelancer, I had decades of experience in journalism, corporate communications, and, public health. This background gave me wider subject matter expertise than if I’d gone straight from a university or professional certification program into editing.

For example, one of my editing clients is a public health organization focused on disease and injury prevention. The organization produces social marketing campaigns and various educational curricula. Having worked in public health, I had a familiarity with this material, the concepts and messaging techniques, that proved invaluable in working with the organization. I didn’t need certification to be successful at this work, and frankly, not for any of my other editing projects, whether they be nonfiction books, academic articles and essays, or in-house communications.

Certification can be good for an editor’s career; I don’t want to discourage anyone from pursuing it. But  I’ve found it unnecessary. For me, a combination of profession-specific skills — a thorough grounding in the different kinds of editing and a solid grasp of grammar, syntax, and the mechanics of language — have been more important. Those things, and life experience that no course or program can provide.

 

 

INEQUALITY, CLASS AND ECONOMICS

Editing this book, which has just been published,  was one of my favorite projects last year. Written by economist Eric Schutz, Inequality, Class and Economics is an accessible and compelling history of rising economic inequality in the United States and its connection to class and power.

Here’s a sample:

“It is sometimes argued that great and increasing economic disparities such as are now commonplace in the United States need not necessarily be of much concern in an economically mobile society like ours. The sting of inequality is supposedly lessened by the possibility of “moving up the ladder.” Yet mobility is merely another part of the myth of American classlessness. Other nations show significantly greater mobility up the income ladder, both between generations and within one generation, than the United States….Statistical studies today indicate that the ease of movement from one income level to another in the United States has actually declined greatly since the Second World War. Not only is the length of the ladder increasing as the degree of wealth and income inequality rises; it is also getting harder to climb the ladder as upward mobility is decreasing.”

Writing and editing, that’s what I do. As do so many other members of the NAIWE. But what’s the relationship between the two activities? Is one more enjoyable or rewarding than the other? I began my professional life as a reporter and features writer for a Connecticut weekly. I then worked as the arts editor of another Connecticut paper, the New Haven Advocate. Then, in the late 80s, I decided to get a degree in social work (community organizing and social planning) because of the AIDS crisis. I felt I had to make a contribution to fighting this terrible epidemic that was killing so many and exposing not only the bigotry against people who had HIV but also the inadequacies and inequities of our country’s health care system. Although I continued to contribute articles to such publications as The Nation, Newsday, Film Comment, the SoHo Weekly News, and The Advocate, I mainly worked as a program planner and writer/editor for government and non-governmental agencies. And somehow, while working full-time in public health, I managed to write my first book, An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (Farrar, Straus, Giroux). (I was able to write the book because I had a supportive boss who allowed me to rearrange my schedule.)

After more than twenty-five years working in public health, I left full-time employment to concentrate on writing and editing. My experience in public health, focused mostly on HIV/AIDS, taught me a lot not only about that field but also about editing. Having to craft compelling messaging that could keep people from becoming ill and dying was a challenge much more daunting than writing a feature article or an arts review. And editing writing by physicians and other medical professionals so that it was accessible to their intended audiences was even more challenging.  But it also was great preparation for what I would do after leaving full-time employment: editing books.

At first, the transition was awkward, and it took me a while to adjust and build a client base. But before long, I was working with both publishers, academic and trade, and directly with authors, on nonfiction books. I’ve edited histories of the Middle East, the memoir of a heavy metal rockstar, the biography of a founder of forensic science, an expose’ of electronic surveillance and disinformation, a first-hand account of Cuba’s economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union, and many other titles. I found I loved working on other writers’ work, helping them to say what they wanted to say as effectively as possible. I also found that editing their work improved my own writing. I read my own work much more closely and critically. Editing definitely has made me a better writer. I’ve managed to juggle writing and editing projects pretty well; I am now finishing my second book, about the Sicilian/Italian history of New Orleans. My work life has been like this: I work on editing and my own writing on alternate days for the most part; sometimes, though, one project, usually an editing assignment, will take priority. It’s an arrangement that works well for me, and one I enjoy and find creatively fulfilling.

2021, though not as epically terrible as 2020, is not a year I will look back on fondly. It was for me a year of great personal loss, as well as yet another year of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Vaccines and boosters enabled a brief period of hope that things might return to some semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy. Then came omicron. Throughout it all, I’ve managed to write and edit, working on some interesting and challenging projects that were creatively fulfilling (and paid the bills). I’ve edited several books and made substantial progress on one I’ve been writing–a book about New Orleans that will be unlike any existing book about that complicated, fun-loving, troubled, and indispensable city. I’m looking forward to completing the book soon and taking on new writing and editing projects in 2022. Got a writing project you need an editor for? Don’t hesitate to get in touch through this website.

As the summer of 2021 winds down, writers, editors, and publishers return from vacations (assuming they were able to take them), ready and eager (one hopes!) to get back to work. I’m no exception. I cut back my writing and editing for a couple of months and now am well rested and ready to take on new challenges.

Do you have a book manuscript you need edited, whether basic copy editing or a more detailed review ? An idea you want to develop for a book proposal? Academic articles or essays or online content? Are you a progressive NGO doing good work and need an editor/writer to get the word out about it?

Get in touch with me here and let me know what you need. I’m here to answer your questions, give you advice, and hopefully establish a working editorial relationship that results in a writing project you’re happy with and proud of.

I edit nonfiction and have wide ranging subject matter expertise. Culture, pop culture, politics, social science, health and sexuality, LGBT all are areas in which I specialize. Take a look at this website to see more about the services I offer and my experience.

 

 

 

I am George De Stefano, an editor and writer available for new projects in both areas. Let me explain what I do and how I can help you.

Editor

Whether you’re a first-timer or an experienced author, you probably know that there is no shortage of freelance editors —copy, line, and developmental.

So why hire me?

I offer 30 years of experience and expertise in book editing, media and journalism, academic publishing, corporate communications, and public and nongovernmental agencies.

What do I do?

I offer the following services to my clients:

• copy editing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, usage)
• line editing (language and paragraph-by-paragraph organization of content, and rewriting)
• developmental editing (structural work, including rewriting, on an existing manuscript or development of a new one).

I also provide manuscript evaluation services, as a first step in a substantive/developmental edit.

I have edited books by well-known authors, including rock musicians, historians, social scientists, literary critics, constitutional law experts, media critics and other nonfiction authors for major trade and academic publishers. I also edit for media companies and nonprofit organizations. I have edited major research reports and policy documents for think tanks, including The Center for Strategic and International Studies, and NGOs, including the United Nations’ World Food Program.

My subject matter expertise is broad, encompassing social science, the humanities, popular culture, social and political issues, health and public health. I am not intimidated by technical material and I am used to working with authors whose first language is not English.

I will work with you to make your writing project the best it can be, and something we both will be proud of.

Writer

I am an author, journalist and critic. I have contributed features, reviews, essays, and opinion pieces to a wide range of print and digital publications including The Nation, Film Comment, Newsday, Gay City News, The Advocate, Cineaste, In These Times, The Italian American Review and Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, and online publications PopMatters, The New York Journal of Books, Rootsworld, and La Voce di New York.

My well-reviewed non-fiction book An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America explores some of my longstanding preoccupations as a writer: cultural mythologies and their social impact; ethnic identity and stereotypes; popular culture, especially film, and how such social categories as race, class, sexuality and gender interact in American society. I also am a contributing author to many other books, including The Routledge History of the Italian Americans, The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses), Mafia Movies (University of Toronto), Our Naked Lives (Bordighera Press).

If you are a writer, publisher, or organization looking for topnotch editorial services, please get in touch via this website.

Agents and publishers–if my work interests you, please get in touch.