The complete text of So, You Want to Be an Editor is reprinted below.
Few people choose editing as a profession.
More often, the profession of editing chooses them. In one sense, everyone edits. Writers who revise even one word in a manuscript have started editing their work. A speaker who pauses in mid-sentence to find a better word or phrase, a manager who revises an instruction or restates a policy, a secretary who clarifies a sentence in someone else's dictation is, for the moment, an editor. In another sense, editing is a highly specialized profession.