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David Downing wonders: <<Anybody constantly have the experience of having
someone agree to give you a technical review, then copy editing your
document in addition to or instead of reviewing it?>>
All the time. Every research director I've worked with loves doing it.
Fortunately, the current one's pretty good at the job.
<<I've been thinking it's best not to complain, lest you antagonize your
reviewers and thus lead them to decide they'll never give you another
review, but it's problematic when they copy edit instead of reviewing. How
do other folks handle this?>>
One thing that might work is to harness some of that energy. Point out to
the person that the document will be revised at least once more after
they've edited it, and all their editing work will be lost--or will have to
be redone after those future revisions. If they're actually good at doing
this work, enlist their aid as editor during the final revision; you won't
necessarily have to accept all their edits, but the odds are good that
they'll find at least occasional things that need correcting, and you can
complement them on a "good catch".
If they're actually bad at editing, emphasize the former part of the
solution and try to point out how much time they'd be saving if they just
stuck to the technical reviews. Then avoid getting them involved later in
the review process, perhaps with a little managerial aid if they prove
recalcitrant.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is
noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience,
which is the bitterest."--Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478
BCE)
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