As an English major and English tutor, I am constantly being asked to either give feedback to the writing of my peers, or help a tutee (it's a real word) go through his/her paper in order to make corrections and become a stronger writer (with the goal of not needing my help in the future).
I've also been told by professors and students alike that I'm extremely good at editing. This, of course, I know. While I do make my own silly mistakes, generally I'm a very strong writer--I can see/hear when something isn't right. I can even tell the difference between a regular and an italicized period, depending on the font being used. I blame this (I think really cool) ability on different factors:
1.) I was encouraged to begin reading at a very young age (four maybe) and quickly surpassed other kids my age in skill level.
2.) I love to read, and I read a lot. Therefore, I know how things are supposed to look on the page. Likewise, I know what needs to be in a complete sentence, and how to properly use commas (something that many of my peers are jealous of me). Sometimes I can identify what is wrong and how to fix it, but I can't explain why it's wrong or why my solution will fix it--this can become a hassle when tutoring.
3.) I only slightly give credit to having a "gift," or a "natural ability". I'm just a language person!
I do enjoy editing and I even find myself picking up on editing mistakes in the books that I read purely for pleasure. I'm one of those people known as a "grammar Nazi". I'm not perfect, like I said before...and I do make a lot of mistakes, especially when I'm in "the zone". However, I have an even more uncanny ability to find the mistakes of others...sometimes to my peers' delight or disgust. For instance, I'm taking a creative writing class right now. We had to turn in a short 5-8 page story. No big deal. We also had to go back and read the stories of all of our peers and then comment on what we thought were the strengths and weaknesses of them. When I read the comments I received, they were all pretty much one paragraph in length, with not many specific references to my material. In sharp contrast, my six peers received their entire papers back with comments in the margins, ranging from content to grammar comments, and everything in between. In addition, at the end of their stories, I wrote a long summarizing passage about what I thought of the story overall, and what I suggested focusing mainly on for revision. I'm not sure if they are going to be pissed that I went crazy with comments about comma usage and the differences between "there", "their", and "they're", or if they are going to appreciate the fact that I just did most of their revising work for them. I have received mixed feelings before because peers (these were non-English majors in this case) thought that I was being "too harsh/critical," and that I was "mean". However, once a person is in a junior level course, they should already know that a paragraph has to be more than two sentences long, and that a page requirement means you have to AT LEAST meet that length. I do get annoyed when I have to waste my time going over someone's work when I can clearly identify that he/she waited until the last minute and didn't even bother to follow directions or proofread his/her work before it was turned in. I do have to watch my tone sometimes.
When I was going through the short stories (and they were rough drafts), I would start off relatively happy. Then everything would begin to change because I would start finding the same type of error sentence after sentence. Because I really am a grammar nazi, things like that really interrupt my ability to focus on the actual content. I just can't move past that damn comma splice! I just can't let that tense agreement error go unnoticed! I find myself adding comment after comment on just grammar, and it ends up taking me 2 1/2+ hours on reading just ONE person's story. My muscles tighten up and I'm sure my face must resemble the most horrible looking troll-woman on the planet. I do try my hardest to keep my attitude OUT of my comments, but sometimes I can't help doing something like this:
Here is your writing: "I love cats because they are the best and they like to run and then I like to pet them they are cute". -_- SERIOUSLY? RO (run-on). You need to break this up into multiple sentences. I know this is just a rough draft but I know you can write better than this".
Or:
You need to look up the difference between "err" and "air". You just said, "She has a weird mistake about her" instead of, "She has a weird air (feeling/atmosphere) about her". Please don't use idioms unless you know how to write them.
If you are grammar crazy like I am, you'll understand where I'm coming from. I mean, come on, English is his/her NATIVE language!!
Usually, I end up going back and toning them down, or trying to make them funny so that I don't sound like a total bitch, which by that point is what I've turned into. Even my dog cowers when I'm catching stupid mistakes, because I will actually yell out loud, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?" when I'm sitting at home reading crap off of my computer. I seriously do have anger issues when it comes to grammar.
However, generally I really do enjoy reading/editing because I like helping writers make what they're really trying to say more clear: sometimes it's just so bad that I have no clue what it really is that they are trying to say!
This might scare you, but:
One day, I want to edit for a publishing company. I'm not sure how the outlook is for that type of work, but it's one of my many aspirations. I think it would be wayyyyy too fun to read fiction for work! I mean, yes I will have to edit it, thus making it longer to read, but still...that's the job for me!
