I’ve got an itchy trigger finger. As a blogger, that means I’m sometimes publishing articles that, while proofed, may not quite be ready for prime time. It’s less often an issue of misspellings or grammar. In most cases, a sentence just sounds clunky or I used two paragraphs in an argument when one could clearly do the job.
So I admit it: I do, from time to time, stealth edit my posts. My last post, for example, was a late-night one-off, fueled by sleeplessness and caffeine. A three minute once-over the next day helped turn it into something I wouldn’t mind re-reading or re-linking months or years down the road.
Since the changes I make are almost always cosmetic, it seems senseless to post an update list. I mean, does anyone care that I reduced the use of passive voice in the third paragraph? (They don’t. Trust me – I already checked.)
But that’s why I’m wondering if I should bother with all this stealth editing in the first place. True, every blog is different. Perfect grammar and finely crafted turns of phrase aren’t necessarily on everyone’s list of requirements when evaluating a blog post, theirs or others. Content is king, but timeliness and originality count for something too.
Does it matter? If a tree falls in the forest and the other trees don’t give a flying flip about dangling participles, does it make a sound? I know the question itself – Is stealth editing bad? – is essentially a non-starter. A bunch of factors determine whether a post-publish editorial process is appropriate for any given article. What I’m more interested in is whether I’m the only one that’s doing this sort of thing.
Well, am I?
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Whaddya think?