Is the editor allowed to change contents of your article freely?

Apart from outright rejection of their articles, there is nothing that hurts the feelings of writers more than being heavily edited. One writer said she didn’t want to write for the Nation anymore after her article was “over-edited”.

Another said his article was completely rewritten and shortened and that, that hurt his ego. Yet another said whole paragraphs were cut and new ones written by the editor, so much so that he could no longer recognise his article.

Still another said her article was substantially altered, with tranches of new text written by the editor and sections of her text deleted or rewritten.

“This has now put my reputation as an academic and as a writer at serious risk. I have even had some colleagues question my ability to write,” she said.

While in some cases an editor can mess up an article, a professional editor nearly always improves the article and makes it more attractive to the reader. Indeed, the purpose of editing is nearly always to make an article clearer, more complete and more understandable to readers.

Unnecessary words 

An editor cuts down on unnecessary words and phrases. He edits to tighten and enliven the article. The goal is to make the article more appealing to the reader.

Editing is necessary because many writers tend to fall in love with what they write, regardless of whether it meets reader’s interests and needs or not. They create little darlings — words, phrases, sentences and even paragraphs — that must be eliminated because they do not advance the story in any way or improve its readability, clarity or flow.

Articles are written for the reader, not the writer! The writer and his ego must not be allowed to get into the way of a clear, concise and understandable article. Only words that provide useful information to the reader should be retained.

“Kill the darlings” is one of the best advice for writers. The phrase was originally used by William Faulkner, an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate, who said, “In writing you must kill all your darlings.”

To avoid heavy editing, writers should learn to kill all their little darlings.

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Professor Anthony Diala complains that the title “Is African customary law relevant?” distorts his original article. The original title was “Understanding the relevance of African customary law in modern times” , he adds.

A legal anthropologist, he also complains that his article was truncated, making it “incomplete”. The original article was 1,009 words long but what was published was only 663 words.

“Please note that you are not allowed to alter the contents of the article in any way, or publish incomplete portions of it,” he says.

He is right. The Citizen lifted the article from The Conversation, edited it and published it as an op-ed on December 4, 2020, with the new title. The Citizen is the leading English-language newspaper in Tanzania. It is published by Mwananchi Communications Limited, a subsidiary of Nation Media Group.

Republishing guidelines

The Conversation is a source of analytical articles on issues of public interest written by academics and researchers. It says it believes in the free flow of information and publishes its articles under a Creative Commons licence.

This means you can republish its articles for free, provided you follow its republishing guidelines, which state: “You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. If you do wish to make material edits, you will need to run them by the author for approval prior to publication.”

The Citizen editor, therefore, needed permission from Prof Diala to slash the article and give it a different title.

The Public Editor is an independent news ombudsman who handles readers’ complaints on editorial matters, including accuracy and journalistic standards. Email: [email protected]. Call or text 0721989264.