Let’s face it, who likes having their work cut into tiny shreds with a blood-red pen? No one, unless you enjoy pain.

An editor has many functions for a publication. It’s his/her job to make sure that all the material being printed is error-free.

Editing can, and should be, the most important stage in putting out the paper. This is when errors are caught, and when facts and opinions are made understandable and easy to follow.

The main reason for editing someone’s work is to make the work clear, not only to you as the editor, but to the ultimate critic, the reader.

An editor’s job is to make the writing tight and accurate. There are no ‘perfect writers,’ so if you are looking at the page and do not make a single correction, then you are doing a poor job. Editing involves changing. The question should never be, “Should I have changed it?”, but rather, “Have I made it better?”

The main thing to focus on when editing a story is accuracy. Being an accurate editor comes with practice and patience. Ask yourself these questions: “Have I made all the spelling and punctuation corrections?” “Are all the names of sources correct?” Check the facts of the story -Are there any holes? What is missing? Question quotes from sources - Are they shocking? Could we be dragged into court for publishing these comments?

Readers want to see the same quality work, day after day and week after week. Sometimes mistakes will get by the scrutiny given to it by the editors. Some readers may not see the mistakes but you can be sure that someone will. There are some things you can use as a guide to make all the writing in the newspaper consistent. Did I use British or American spellings? Are the punctuation marks inside or outside the quotation marks? Always ask yourself if the sentence could be made shorter.

Remember the rule: If in doubt, leave it out.

Read the story made by the reporter. Make a mental list of questions to ask the reporter to make sure he/she has checked things you don’t really understand, and to find things that you feel should be included in the article but aren’t. Get any passages in the story that you feel may need more work to show to the reporter. Work on fixing the mistakes together.

Once the first read through of errors has been corrected, try a second read. This time, look for a readable telling of the facts. See if the lede needs reworking. Do all of the paragraphs flow together to make sense?

The most difficult part of being an editor is to train your brain to look at every letter, and question all things that seem to be out of place.

There are generally three levels of editing for a publication. Each part of the newspaper or other publication is broken down into sections, such as news or sports. Each section has a section editor. That person’s job is to do the first editing of the work. He/she usually sits down with the writer on some occasions and tells the reporter why things are going wrong.

After it has passed the section editor, it is passed to the copy editor. A copy editor’s job is to look at all the writing for the whole publication - from news to sports, from entertainment to editorials. The copy editor is the real editor - if he/she doesn't like the work, it will be cut.

The managing editor for a publication oversees the finished product and generally looks at all the writing, from advertisements to stories, and makes sure all are correct and ready for printing. After the managing editor's final say, it’s off to the presses, or onto the Net for publishing.

Editors need to know the rules of spelling, punctuation, and general style of writing. These must be balanced for the writer and publication to look good.

An editor must be a humanitarian. In other words the editor must consider the feelings of the writer when editing a story. There must be some empathy towards the writer because it's a personal piece of work. It is written with good intentions and it may not be great, but it’s his/hers. If necessary, a meeting with the writer may be needed to make sure the writer is aware of changes to a story.