This really happens and it really happened today. I wrote an article for a client. The article was actually done once, substantially revised after a review committee looked at it, and then revised by me. I turned in a manuscript and further revisions were undertaken by the rightful owners of the article, who because of “work for hire” laws, were not I. The revisions were made by the people who are going to appear as authors when the article hits print, so it is certainly their good right to write what they want.
However, somewhere in the euphoria of seeing my revised manuscript and getting the article to print a number of changes were introduced. The last round of changes made to the article were written in a somewhat different style. Three new paragraphs were introduced so that a once minor point became longer than some of the key points of the article. The writing style was different than mine. The person who changed the article tended to write things like “observed observations” or “our findings showed what we found.” So this portion was sort of weak.
Other changes were more reasonable, but the changes were made in stabs without massaging them in. So in one area, it says, “most many participants found this or that…” I suspect one reviewer could not decide if it was most of the participants or many of the participants. (He told me that it was the vast majority but he was uncomfortable saying “most” because that sounded too strong; I told him the “vast majority” was a lot more than “many” and left it as most in my manuscript. ) In the published article I see both words appear, probably because that reviewer added his preferred choice but, in the euphoria of authorship, failed to realize that he had to delete the previous word to make it read correctly.
On top of that, whoever laid out the article was not paying attention. One paragraph appears twice, neatly repeating itself like the print version of a skipping vinyl record. Another paragraph has sentences that appear twice. It’s not as evident as the duplicate paragraphs, but a reader will notice it. I didn’t even really read it thoroughly. After seeing these things, I put it aside, rather like what I do with the stock pages of the newspaper these days.
All of this could have been prevented if the writer had seen the galleys or some form of the article after it had been laid out. Many publications do this routinely and it’s very wise. Writers may not be perfect proofreaders, but we can often spot the ghastly stuff. Even more, we know how to fix it and rarely result in the histrionics common among the non-writing world. (Ever see a non-writer catch a typo? You would have thought that they single-handedly figured out the Madoff scheme the way they hoot and holler and demand accolades for themselves while simultaneously preparing to lynch the guilty.)
Since my name does not appear on the article, most writers might say, “Who cares?” Legally and ethically, I delivered what was required and was paid for my services. The client has every right to change the article as he sees fit and if he decides to get it published and not have anyone proofread the galleys, that is his business, not mine. And who would really ever know? My name isn’t on the article anywhere, which is as it should be since my job was to take the expert content and craft it into a publishable article.
The problem is that when this appears and the authors read it, they will conclude–as non-writing authors always do–that the errors in the article were somehow caused by someone best defined as not-them, and that populations subset usually includes the writer.
For all you non-writing types who commission writing, please know that any time you touch a text–even if all you want to do is “fix” one sentence or “add one little paragraph,” you run the risk of messing stuff up, sometimes stuff you aren’t even looking at and had no intention of messing up. When it comes to pixels on a screen, good intentions count very little.
And for you types who lay out articles for magazines or publications or websites, it’s not a bad idea to show things to a writer from time to time. It doesn’t even have to be the original writer. Writers actually care about words on paper so they will often point out mistakes that you can correct quickly and easily.
As for me, this is another article that won’t make it to my portfolio.
