posted
So, I'm editing a martial arts book that also has a lot of basic health science in it. The Grandmaster has studied extensively, and designed the martial art using biomechanical principles and so forth.
Thing is, he's not a native English speaker, and he's basically dictating to a British fellow who has written a few articles, but doesn't have a strong science background.
Mostly, I've been weeding out British-isms, cumbersome sentence structures and the occasional screaming howler. The work has stedily deteriorated, however, because the guuy has been working on this for weeks, all day, everyday, sometimes until 2am. In one of the last sections he made enough unsual (for him) mistakes that I began to worry.
But this! Take a look at a sample of the last doc. I got:
quote: How does human life start out? As human beings we start out as a cell at the beginning. A sperm and an egg meet and become a cell. This is how we start out!
O_O
Or this:
quote: Inside the nucleus there are 23 pairs of chromosomes. Inside these chromosomes there is a curly thread-like helix strand: this is the DNA structure. Each DNA strand altogether, inside each chromosome is the gene. Basically, the gene is made up of the DNA structure. DNA makes up the gene. This is our human gene.
I see stuff like this all the time in fiction, and when I do, I generally pass on editing because they don't need an editor, they need a manuscript doctor or a ghost writer.
But I agreed to massage this manuscript as well as edit it. *sigh* There have been some places where I really had NO idea what the real science was he was referring to, so I left it alone. But because I do actually understand what he's trying to say here, I'll probably end up largely re-writing it.
My new mantra is "But there will be money, after."
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I had something very similar like this last year, editing reports for non-native English speaking college students. Most of them are from China and Taiwan. It's painfully funny because these people are all older than me, and they're brilliant, but the mistakes are just so funny. I feel like a jerk laughing about them though. At least I know, and they know I know, that they're much smarter than me. But there I am, explaining to them what a Q-Tip is.
posted
Olivet, I had a similar experience when I worked in a teaching center in Israel, while in grad school. I wasn't even hired as an editor, but as a typist!
One of the professors for whom I typed wrote numerous articles on the theories of Piaget, and his English was horrendous. I couldn't help myself, I ended up editing as I was typing, and I don't know if he ever even noticed. He certainly never said anything...
[ November 16, 2004, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
BTL, I said BioMECHANICAL principles, not biochemistry. Funny, though.
Thing is, it's actually being written by a native English speaker. A Brit, in fact. He's just worn down and tired of trying to fix it at this point, so I get to do it.
It's okay. It's almost over. It will be completely out of my hands by Monday, one way or the other.
The scary thing is, they want to put my name on it, too, as editor. They mean well, but it sort of feels like a threat.
Do you think they'd take it well if I begged them to just pay me and keep my name off the thing? Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Oh dear. That's just precious. I'm so confused about DNA and reproduction now that I might just have to go back to Bio 101. Moan.
I work in a field that has a fair number of foreign students working in US universities and some few folks internationally as well. The worst are the engineers. They know, basically, that for most things they get on quite fine without perfecting their English language skills, so they don't. Of course, when it comes time to write a paper or give a presentation they either have to work very very hard at it, or they just screw up badly.
I am on the paper review panel for an annual conference that is considered "good practice" for graduate students wanting to make presentations or pick up a publication for their C.V. As a consequence, about 1/4 of what we review in that committee is written by people with no idea how to communicate in English. I have sadly had to reject papers simply on the principle that I can't tell what they are saying. Did the treatment work or not. They can't tell me.
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