Conscious Language, and What the Standard Asks

What the standard actually asks for

The two verbs are identify and suggest. Neither of them is impose, and the difference decides how the finding is delivered.

That places conscious language in the same category as every other stylistic finding. A query, with a proposed alternative, addressed to the person who decides. Editors Canada's fundamentals ask that queries and author letters be clear, tactful, succinct, and actionable, and that changes be made while maintaining a consistent voice, tone, and register without altering intended meaning.²

An editor who silently rewrites a phrase has not met that standard, whatever they think of the phrase. An editor who says nothing has not met it either.

Two audiences, and only one of them was planned for

The second constraint is the one authors find most useful, because it is the one they cannot check themselves.

An author writes for an intended reader and knows a great deal about that reader. A published document also reaches people the author did not have in mind. The standard asks the editor to consider that second group explicitly, which is a question the author is not well placed to answer alone.¹

That is a factual question about circulation rather than a moral one, and it has an answer. Who else will see this? A recruitment page reaches applicants who will not apply. A patient handout reaches families. A grant report reaches a community described in it. Each of those readers meets language written for somebody else.

Where it is a consistency problem rather than a values problem

A great deal of what falls under this heading is ordinary editorial work with a different name. Three of the commonest cases are consistency problems, and all three are settled the way consistency problems always are.

Terminology that shifts between sections is the first case, and the style sheet is where it is settled. A document describing the same group three ways has three descriptions and one subject, and the fix is the same one any inconsistency gets: decide, record the decision, apply it. Editors Canada's copy editing standards cover maintaining that record and resolving variations in terminology.³

Terminology that has moved on is the second. Fields update their preferred terms, and a manuscript written over several years can carry two eras of usage in one document. That is checkable against the field's current published guidance rather than against anyone's opinion. Manuals are catching up as well. The Council of Science Editors' ninth edition, carrying a 2024 copyright, expanded its coverage to include diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations alongside its other conventions.⁴

Descriptions that are longer than they need to be is the third. A characteristic mentioned where it does not bear on the sentence is usually a wordiness problem before it is anything else. The stylistic standards already ask for wordiness to be eliminated by deleting unnecessary modifiers.¹

Where an editor's authority stops

An editor does not decide what an author believes, what a field should call something, or whether a description is fair. Those belong to the author, to the field, and where an organization has a policy, to that organization.

What an editor supplies is a list. It names terms used inconsistently, terms the field has superseded, characteristics named where they carry no weight, and phrasing that reads differently to an unintended reader. Each entry is a query with an alternative attached, and each is the author's to accept or decline.

Where a client has a house guide, we work to it. Where they have not, we ask rather than supply one, because a preference imposed quietly is still an imposition.

Everything a client sends is treated in confidence, including drafts, internal documents, and correspondence. Our editing services and website copy work are quoted on the whole document, and the decisions come back on the style sheet.