Dear Writer: The Positive Politeness Approach to Editing

By: Charlene Brown, Editor and Publisher of Clover Valley Press, LLC

“It’s easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren’t writers, and very little harm comes to them.”
--Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot

“The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring.”
--Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Writers often long for readers and editors who are perceptive, sensitive, and most of all, kind. Writing is such a personal act of courage and such an emotional journey. It’s actually a rather risky business.

We can overcome the barriers to writing, explained so eloquently by Virginia Woolf in her long essay A Room of One’s Own and by Tillie Olsen in her ominously titled Silences, but we face other obstacles.

After laboring to convey the idea that has captured our attention, our creativity, and our hard-won work, we struggle with themes, images, voice, and character. And then there is the mechanics of the thing. If one looks behind the magic curtain, every written work has a structure, an architecture, as well as a musical element. The scaffolding is built subconsciously at times and at other times quite deliberately.

Even though writers begin their journeys alone, if we wish to share our work, we eventually must invite others along with us—agents, editors, reviewers, booksellers, and common readers.

And because writing is an art, not a science, all these others who become involved with one’s project will have opinions, suggestions, and criticisms of the work. This adds to the emotional baggage that we feel when we begin the journey of producing a writing project, and we may anticipate it with dread. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation about “the human propensity to judge and the human longing to escape judgment” comes to mind.

Yet, every writer benefits from good editing, however fraught with risk the act of sharing one’s work might be. The work improves when exposed to the editor’s eye and concentrated focus on the mechanics, the sensibility, the facts, and the fluency of a piece.

I have often heard that sensibility is something that cannot be taught to a writer. Editors must also bring sensibility as well as tact to their task. It is my hope that editors can “be taught” to take a sensitive approach when working with writers.

Unfortunately, the writer and the editor may never meet face to face to discuss the suggestions for revision and the possibilities inherent in a work. But when they do meet, the editor has a huge responsibility to nurture the writer.

More is at stake here than correcting a grammatical error or smoothing an awkward transition. Here is a writer’s attention, creativity, and hard-won work. We should treat it carefully, gently, and respectfully—handling it as the courageous act of self-expression that it is.

A faculty member at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Jo Mackiewicz, along with her colleague K. Riley, completed a study and produced an article, “The Editor as Diplomat: Linguistic Strategies for Balancing Clarity and Politeness.” They based their study on recordings made of sessions between undergraduate writers and their tutors. Mackiewicz and Riley found that writers have “positive face needs”—that is, they need to be liked by, approved of by, and connected to others. They also noted that writers have negative face needs as well—“the need to be autonomous, independent, and free from imposition.”

Tutors and editors working with writers often perform face-threatening speech acts. They use popular pejoratives such as “awkward,” “wordy,” “unclear,” “confusing,” “redundant,” and “weak.” They might even indicate that a work is “disorganized,” “too long,” or “unfocused.” An editor can hardly avoid the need to identify problems in writing pieces because the editor needs to support suggestions for revision. Yet, criticism can be softened and downgraded by using positive politeness strategies.

Instead of saying, “This is wordy,” an editor might say, “This sentence could be shortened” or “I would try to say this more concisely.” The simple use of “I” statements or “we” statements can bring an element of inclusiveness to the conversation. It is possible to allow the author to feel that you are collaborating with her rather than criticizing her.

Instead of “This paragraph has no focus,” one could say, “I would focus the introduction around the claim you make in this sentence.” Instead of saying, “This sentence is confusing,” say “Tell me what you meant by ‘… .’”

Avoiding and mitigating criticism can help to build a writer’s confidence, and it can also bring into being a good working relationship between an editor and the writing client.


Mackiewicz, J. & Riley, K. “The Technical Editor as Diplomat: Linguistic Strategies for Balancing Clarity and Politeness.” Technical Communication 50: 83-94, 2003.