Many editors start their careers as in-house employees before going freelance, some of us remain with organizations throughout our careers, and some vacillate between freelancing and working in-house. As most of our articles focus on freelancing, we thought it was time to look at what our in-house colleagues do to give interested editors an idea of what this kind of work environment involves. We open our series with Gael Spivak, who works in the public service.
Gael works as a communications advisor for the Canadian federal government, where she specializes in plain language writing and editing. She’s worked on a lot of different topics, including food safety and food labelling, animal health, plant health, ethics and government, biotechnology, pandemic planning, zoonoses, and road salts.
On the professional and volunteer level, Gael was on the national executive council of Editors Canada for 10 years, which included being the association’s president. During that time, Gael was co-chair of the first international editing conference (and was well into planning the second one when the pandemic struck). She also serves as a moderator in several international communities of practice for editors.
Gael has been a plain language practitioner for many years, and she’s now working with colleagues at the international level. She helped to write Part 1 of the international plain language standard that was developed through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), published in June 2023. She also serves as the editor of the various parts of the standard.
She volunteers with the International Plain Language Federation, chairing the localization and implementation committee, which focuses on promoting the ISO plain language standard and helping countries around the world to translate, localize, adopt, and implement the standard. It also plans and coordinates the communications when various parts of the standard are published.
Gael adores squirrels and tiny books, cannot resist stationery, and has a large collection of articles on the history and use of the singular they in English.
We asked her about her editing career and insights.
What skills have been most valuable in navigating your in-house role (as opposed to freelancing)?
Accepting that there could be many changes to the documents I write or edit. When you work in-house in certain sectors, you are part of a large team. The viewpoints of other people on the team often have to be taken into account. And in a hierarchical workplace like government, people at each level above you know more about the context of any given situation. So they might have information you don’t have that affects the document you’re working on.
Accepting that, and just going with the flow, has helped make me more relaxed about the content I produce.
What made you choose in-house editing?
I didn’t choose in-house editing. I was already working in-house as a communications advisor when editing chose me (you can read about that on the Shop Talk blog of the Chicago Manual of Style). But I had been a freelance communications advisor before I started working in-house. I decided to go in-house because I don’t like hustling up work and I didn’t want to keep doing all the business side of things (including the bookkeeping). For me, the security of a full-time job and not needing to run a business make up for the loss of freedom. It’s not for everyone, but it works well for me.
Do you have to collaborate with other team members, and who are they?
I work with lots of different team members. In the directorate I’m in, I have about 75 colleagues, and I could work with any of them on any given day. Most of them are scientists and policy wizards. They are the subject matter experts whom I get my information and facts from when I need to write something, or it’s their work that I edit. I also work with administrative staff. They are critical to keeping things moving along in approvals and making sure we meet our deadlines, which are often very tight.
How does working as part of a team affect or change your editing process, as opposed to working on your own (or as a freelancer)?
I do a lot of explaining my editing, especially when it’s for someone I haven’t worked with before. I might not do that as a freelancer, but at work I do it for several reasons:
- I’m showing my colleagues that my edits are not arbitrary (they’re not based on my taste or preferences). I tell them I’m making certain changes to conform to our style guide, or to Canadian English, current usage, or plain language guidelines.
- I’m coaching them in my edits, so they can incorporate what they learn into their next document.
- I’m giving them information that they might need to point out to others as the document goes through approvals.
I really enjoy this aspect of editing at my workplace. I get to constantly show people how many things editors pay attention to and how much they know. And people are genuinely interested in the information I tell them. I think they also like finding out which so-called rules in English aren’t actually rules at all. I like helping to liberate them from that prescriptivism and guilt.
What advice can you give to in-house editors who are looking to stand out during an interview and/or in their role?
You need to stay on top of current usage and trends. You need to read about editing topics all the time so you can stay up to date. This will make you a better editor. And you can mention it in interviews to show that you know this is important and that you are indeed up to date.
For example, I would mention how I follow the Professional Editorial Standards that Editors Canada publishes. I would refer to the resources on the Language Portal of Canada, especially the newer inclusive writing guidelines. And I’d talk about how I read discussions from other editors (and sometimes contribute to them) in various online communities of practice, such as those on Bluesky, Discord, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
What’s something you know now that you wish you knew back when you were starting this career?
I wish I’d known how big English is and how many acceptable differences there are between various types of English. I did learn that along the way, thanks to the many generous and insightful posts from more experienced editors (on the Editors Canada email list, and then on social media). I also came across excellent advice in The Subversive Copyeditor fairly early in my editing career. Getting all that information early in my career allowed me to not become too much of a Miss Thistlebottom before I had to mend my ways.
This article was edited by Nicole Plotnikov, a freelance copy editor living in Toronto.
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