Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
So you have made or read about empirical studies. Any pointer to where I can read about these studies? Because without these studies I really do not believe you.
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I don't have any studies, just 28 years of experience. When I first began my editing career, everything was done on paper. Paper was great unless you discovered 100 pages later that edits you made earlier need to be revised in light of information subsequently revealed. Then good luck finding those earlier edits without having to go back through the manuscript page by page and increasing the cost. Even then nothing assured that all would be caught.
In addition, editing on paper meant that the human tendency to read what one expected rather than what was actually present often occurred.
Online editing lowered editing costs, speeded up the edting process, and reduced the number of errors committed by authors that were missed by editors. Is it perfect? No, but definitely better. Especially because of the availability of macros and specialized dictionaries that further reduce the errors that are missed by manual editing.
In my experience, editing online has reduced the cost to authors and publishers of the editing process while speeding up the process.