Some awkward sentences are fixable because the intended meaning is obvious. Others have gaps for which a responsible edit cannot find the missing piece. The difference between the two situations is crucial: if the author’s meaning is clear, you can improve it with your edit. If the meaning is uncertain, you will replace it with your interpretation unless you check with the author.
Example 1: The committee discussed the proposal in a detailed way before making a final decision. Example 2: After reviewing the proposal, it was decided that the changes were necessary.
The first sentence is clear, but it is awkwardly worded. An edit to change this sentence to, “The committee discussed the proposal in detail before making a final decision” does not change its meaning in any way. The sentence is more succinct, but it conveys the same action with no additional information or nuance.
In the second sentence, however, we do not know who decided that the changes were necessary after reviewing the proposal. In Example 1 it was the committee. That same committee could have reviewed the proposal and determined the changes were necessary, or it could be a different committee or client or group, or it could be a single manager who has made the decision. If we make the edit “The committee decided that the changes were necessary,” we fix the sentence structure but we add information. This is a place to use an author query.
The author query needs to be informative rather than a single word like, “Unclear.” You can simply point out to the writer what you think is unclear. The query does not have to be in question format and it does not have to state the most likely interpretation. It can be an informative description: “Who decided that the changes were necessary? Please name the person or group so I can revise the sentence.” The query provides an explanation of why you cannot revise the sentence and what information you need to write an accurate revision. It does not attempt to interpret an ambiguous sentence.
To test your skills, select five sentences from the current draft that are awkward in some way. On a separate piece of paper, next to each sentence write what you think the sentence is trying to say and underline the part of the sentence that tells you that. If the sentence is sufficiently clear to allow for editing, then try a minimal, careful revision. Is it better than the original? If you have to make up any other subject, cause, or timeline, or any fact about a relationship between words or numbers, then you are no longer fixing the grammar and syntax of the original sentence but making up information. Stop and use an author query.
New copy editors often over edit for the same reason we do other editing in our first drafts: we try to write the best possible sentence when we know the original is not the author’s intended best sentence, and we do not want to stop to ask for clarification. If you are using word-processing software, the tracked changes will show you how much you have added to the original and the original will be easy to locate at the bottom of each section. If you are not doing the tracking, the original will have to be looked up. Check the edited sentence to make sure that all of the information you have included was part of the original. If you cannot find it, remove the added information. Another way to judge whether the meaning of the edited sentence is equivalent to the original sentence is to read them both out loud. Pay attention to the rhythm. How are they different in emphasis? In tone?
It is helpful for the author and editor to see the relationship between editing and author query clearly. Editing deals primarily with language issues and can be done when meaning is clear. Author query deals with missing information and should not be attempted with the assumption that meaning is clear. Redundancy, lack of rhythm, or a tangle of words can all be edited by removing or changing or rearranging words. But if the editor does not know the facts or if one or more of the words refer to something that has more than one possibility, an editor has to query the author. Is the edited sentence better than the original? Did you complete the thought or improve the author’s sentence?