The "Small Editing Test" Trap

I don't know why I do it. The job post states that a "small editing test" will be required, and I apply anyway. This is the second time I have done this, and I know I am a complete idiot.

I am not an idiot because I am a bad editor. I have already taken Guru's editing tests and done well on them. I am an idiot because I wasted my bid. The people who demand an "editing test" have no clue what they are doing. The test is not written by a person with a terminal degree in English. The test is written by a high school graduate who may have taken one college level English class in college.

These tests cannot be passed by anyone with actual knowledge of the English language. For one, everyone knows that some things are hard grammar and some are soft grammar. Scratch that--everyone who has something more than a basic high school education in grammar knows it. Hard grammar is the stuff like subject-verb agreement. Soft grammar is the stuff like serial commas.

Every single real publishing house in the world has a style guide. Period. The problem is that as a freelancer, no real publishing house is going to ask you to take their "simple test." They simply look at your editing skills in your samples and can tell right there if you know what you are doing, or they look at your score on the Guru tests.

Guru has a rule that you cannot ask for free samples, but some of these people get through. If they issued fair tests, it wouldn't be a problem, but NONE of them have clean tests that only look at hard grammar. The one I just took included a legitimate (but awkward) spelling: "eying." That word would be marked wrong by most spell checkers, but it is an alternate spelling given in the dictionary. So what in the world am I supposed to do? Well, if I had a style guide, I would know. Style guides spell out which dictionary and which spelling to use. ALWAYS. But I don't have a style guide and the "publishing company" giving me the test probably doesn't have a style guide and probably hasn't ever read even one of the pre-existing guides.

Then, to make matters worse, I am working my way through the "spelling" section after leaving a note on the alternate spelling of eyeing, and notice it is filled with PUNCTUATION errors. Am I supposed to correct or ignore those? Who am I kidding? As a real editor, I CAN'T ignore those! They are blatant ERRORS. So, I begin punctuating (again with comments).

It is at this point I realize: I am going to fail this test as I have failed every other "editing" test I have taken on Guru from people who think they are smart. These people wrote a sentence with a dangling modifier in the "Fix these punctuation errors." I can bet they have never even heard of a dangling modifier and when I correct theirs (because I CAN'T ignore it as a REAL editor), they are going to react in one of two ways. (1) They have never heard of a dangling modifier, so I must be crazy and making things up. (2) They have never heard of a dangling modifier, so they Google it. They discover I am correct, but they think I am being a smart aleck, and they instantly hate me. Neither of these are positive in light of my chance of getting hired.

Why did I do it? Well, it apparently has been too long since I have applied for a job demanding a test. Once I opened that test up, it all came rushing back to me. As a freelancer, just follow the rules. Don't take a test. It's not worth the stress. Even if I did get the job, I would be working with people who don't know a period from an ellipsis. This doesn't bother me when I am working with actual people and not fly-by-night companies, because I can teach an actual person one-on-one. With a company, I will simply be pushing out editing that may or may not be accepted based on the whims of the person over me.

Update: I was contacted shortly after posting this and to my amazement I was told I passed the "test" with flying colors and that I would soon hear from them about the job. One month on and I still haven't heard from them. No big surprise there. They probably made the changes I listed and are now using the test and my answers (which they got for free) as their new "test" for other unwitting freelancers.