“Dear Mr. Whitworth/Dear Professor Fox”: Ode to an Editor and to Editing

Abstract

Although in the course of my long academic career I had published eight books and many articles and essays, it was not until I became involved in writing an autobiographical account of my life as a sociologist that I had the experience of working intensively with a personal editor. From time to time I had wistfully, and rather romantically, wondered what it would be like to have an editor like the most fortunate of “real writers” do: an editor who had a close relationship to my manuscript, to the creative process by which it was coming into being, and to me; who understood my intentions; who was both critical and empathic; and who was endowed with the technical skill, the artistry, and the discernment to know what to do, and not to do, to make my writing better. However, in the spheres of academic journal and book publishing in which I moved, my contacts with editors had generally been confined to those aspects of their roles that pertained to the screening, review, and the so-called production of manuscripts, and to a limited form of copy editing, executed impersonally by someone who usually remained anonymous, and did not exhibit either a feeling for language or a masterly command of grammar.