Re. Editor vs. manager

Subject: Re. Editor vs. manager
From: Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 12:00:49 LCL

Patty Ewy asked about the differences between managers and
editors in the context of producing a publication (as
opposed to supervisory, budgetary etc. roles). The big
differences lie in responsibility, authority and our
relationships with the author.

As an editor, I'm the writer's ally in our ongoing struggle
against the research director (our mutual manager), who is
also a pretty good editor. The struggle occurs because
Ernie has a high standard for quality, and it's darn near
impossible to get a manuscript approved without some
changes. Mostly minor, but often he has some important
substantive revisions to suggest. That's a general rule, by
the way: the more pairs of expert eyes you have to look at
something, the more errors you'll catch or improvements
you'll find. In our shop, it makes for a friendly,
functional synergy.

I _don't_ have the authority to approve manuscripts for
publication, I just edit them to that point, but I do have
authority to make the final decision on issues of language
and format. Ernie _does_ have approval authority, but
doesn't have the time to hold the author's hand and coach
authors on exactly how to revise manuscripts until he's
willing to approve them. I do have the time to coach, and
the responsibility to do so.

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.


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