What Makes an Expert Editor?
Doing something for a long time does not equal expertise. I’ve been singing in the shower for years, but you would not want my tips on training your vocal cords. For years I cut my daughter’s bangs. But you don’t want me touching your hair.
Experience versus Expertise
I’ve met a lot of freelancers over the years. Some of them have twenty or thirty years’ experience—they’ve done a lot of things for a lot of clients and they know what they’re doing.
Others of them have one year’s experience thirty times. They are doing the exact same thing they’ve always done in exactly the same way. They do not actually know any more about their work than someone who just finished school, they’ve just been at it longer.
Expertise is not a function of the length of time you’ve been doing something, although of course experience does help. When you encounter a problem for the first time, you often don’t know what to do and you often choose the wrong solution. But after you’ve seen that problem a lot of times, you know what to do.
Or at least you should.
But if all someone does is the same thing in the same way for thirty years, they may be gaining experience but they’re not gaining expertise.
What Is Expertise?
Expertise is asking the hard questions about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and if you could be doing it better. It’s about continually educating yourself, investigating what other people are doing, and exploring new tools and processes as they become available.
It is not a passive result of sitting at your desk all day. It’s something you have to be in pursuit of.
So if you’re looking for an expert to help guide you, please don’t look only at the length of time someone has been working to make a decision. Some of the most thoughtful, expert editors I know have been doing this work for only a few years.
Some of the least expert editors I know have been doing it for thirty.
Look for curiosity, a willingness to learn, and an interest in exploring the hard questions.
And if you want to become an expert? Be open, willing to learn, and have an interest in exploring the hard questions.
