Toxic Editing: I Don’t Need You to Mark My Paper

Why don’t you help me with your infallible wisdom, oh master editor?

I get it. The Medium community is trying to be helpful. But sometimes it’s a little toxic.

Out of nowhere, people come and mark up your writing like they were the master editor of all master editors.

“Comma here, bad spelling here, missing ‘to’ here…”

Or they tell you that you shouldn’t hit a carriage return after every sentence, because, let’s face it, their reading preferences are far more important than anyone else’s.

Give me a better explanation. I’m willing to hear it. But I’ve read W3C’s website and what they have to say on the matter, and they say to use short sentences and paragraphs to improve usability and accessibility.

So, before you get too carried away, oh mighty overstudied grade three English teacher, let’s set a few things straight.

English is Not English

The first time I saw the word “mum” I was sure it was slang or a misspelling. But I did some research, and I stood corrected — that is the accurate spelling in the UK.

American, Canadian, and Australian English all have certain nuances. I know because as a…