Posts Tagged by editing

The Madonna of Humility

Familiarity not only breeds contempt, it breeds mistakes. I heard from a Countryside reader about an article I wrote for the March/April 2011 issue. In the piece, I quote the FDA’s assertion that over the last 13 years, 800 people have become ill after drinking raw milk. Then, two paragraphs later, without realizing it, I changed the facts by stating that 800 deaths were, indeed, tragic. Eight-hundred people were sickened, not killed, after drinking raw milk.

I’m grateful for the reader who pointed it out. I’m also humbled. Not only did I not catch the mistake as I was writing the piece, no one else in the editorial chain caught it either. It happens. There are two important lessons here for writers: 1) Don’t edit your own work, and 2) don’t edit the work of others when you have a personal interest in the subject matter. (more…)