Editing For Purpose And Design

Whether you edit a technical document (technical edit) or a creative one, certain principles apply across the board, so to speak. The first, overriding rule of editing any type of document is to honor the original, which is another way of saying that you should not “destroy” the writer’s voice. It’s the medical equivalent of “first, do no harm.”
In different terms, there is a way to look at a text holistically and edit on the margins, figuratively. The amount of editing is kept to a minimum (of course you’ll always want to correct grammar and usage) so that the author’s voice is not lost. This is a critical distinction: the editing of text versus a grammatical edit. When editing the text in totality, it is incumbent on the reviewer to read and re-read the material in order to understand what, exactly, the writer is trying to accomplish. Whatever the writer’s intentions, the good editor will allow the text to live on its own and will not be inclined to make wholesale changes, just for the sake of editing.
That’s fundamentally part of the problem: an editor wants to edit. Which is fine, so long as he or she understands the purpose of the job. That job is, or should be, to let the work, as much as possible, speak for itself with a minimum amount of markup. This assumes the text being edited is more or less in good shape, only needing a suggestion or comment here and there and not requiring wholesale change and massive re-writing or movement of text. Perhaps it’s an assumption that is not always the case, too.
Lots of times an editor will run into a massive set of issues not only with grammar and usage but with the entire text; there’s no rhyme, and little reason, behind the work. What was the author trying to accomplish, why is his or her thinking moving in this or that direction at this or that time? In situations like this, the editor must be more proactive than otherwise; and the point of this piece is not to suggest that most works need only minor editing. That may or may not be the case.
But what is true is that, all things being equal, the good editor will have a respect for the original and will do his best or her best to honor that by not making wholesale changes. If the document absolutely needs them, then yes, go ahead. But give the work a chance to find its voice, give it a chance, through multiple readings, to stake its claim for order and design and language.
The successful-the good-editor will do this: will find a way, if at all possible, to allow the original piece to live and breathe on its own. That skill, that ability to ferret out the intention and ultimate point of the work, is severely needed by the editor.
More than just the idea of the piece, it’s the direction in which the work is seeking to travel that is the true job of the editor: to discover the work’s skin and bones and to let content and narrative and intention carry the day.