<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Carol, I share your sorrow. I think the advice you’ve been given is sound.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">My version of this — some of you know this story: Back in the 1980s, I wrote an article, I can’t even remember what it was about, or even the name of the publication.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The lede contained a sentence like, “I love hamburgers….” and from there, went on with a brilliant transition that made a lot of sense in context. Clearly my best work ever. <smile></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The editor changed the lede to say, “I love cheeseburgers.” </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I didn’t find out until seeing it in print.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That is not only false (cheeseburgers are not kosher, and I’ve never eaten one), but also personally humiliating. I literally prayed that nobody I knew would see that article.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And I’ve used that example, when training staff and contractors, and when teaching editorial subjects at events like Folio:, about why an editor should never, never, ever put words in a writer’s mouth. (You can see what I did there.)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">An editor might think a change is trivial, but it may not be.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">-A</div></div><style class=""><!--
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