Twitter as a Learning Tool for Editors
When I started my freelance editing business, one of the first things I did was create a Twitter account. I’d never used it before, but I thought, Business people have Twitter, right? I guess I should too. Little did I know how much I would learn by being on it—not just about what’s going on in the editing world, but what’s going on all around me.
Instead of talking about how editors can use Twitter to market their business or network with peers (which Madeleine Vasaly already covers extensively), I want to focus on how editors can use the platform as a learning tool, simply by following accounts.
Language resources
If you follow what I do, you know that I talk a lot about the need for editors to stay up to date on how language evolves over time. Yes, it’s important to know what dictionaries and popular style guides have to say (such as The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, BuzzFeed Style Guide, and Merriam-Webster). But it’s equally important—or more so, I’d argue—to be aware of how social change affects language so that we can know when terms or style choices are oppressive or liberatory.
Two of my favorite accounts that talk about the power of language are Conscious Style Guide and Alex Kapitan. I also follow many editing organizations so that I know when they offer language-related webinars or publish interesting articles. They include ACES: The Society for Editing, the Editorial Freelancers Association, Professional Editors Network, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, and Editors Canada.
Following journalism associations also helps me stay aware of various issues that relate to the respective organizations and the groups they serve. Some of the accounts I follow are the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Trans Journalists Association.
Writing and publishing initiatives
As a fiction editor, I think it’s important for me to know what’s happening in publishing. But I don’t really follow literary agents, big publishers, or famous authors. I use Twitter to see what books are being published by marginalized writers, as well as what initiatives are supporting them. I follow We Need Diverse Books, Rich in Color, BIPOC Bookshelf, Latinx in Publishing, and Disability in Publishing, to name a few.
I also follow Writing the Other, which is an amazing resource that helps writers learn how to write characters with accuracy and respect. I keep an eye on the classes they offer and the articles they share.
Activists and advocacy groups
Arguably the most significant source of learning for me comes from following activists and advocacy organizations. As a social worker, I learned all about privilege, oppression, marginalization, and discrimination, but that was usually done in the form of reading books. Twitter has given me a front-row seat to what people are talking about in real time—from those who are experiencing the very things I read about on paper.
Whenever I talk about conscious language or microaggressions in editing, I always tell editors that following activists from different communities on social media is one of the best ways for us to learn how not to do harm in our editing, and to educate writers on how they may be doing harm in their writing.
Even if people on Twitter aren’t talking about language specifically, they’re talking about issues that affect them. Being aware of what different people and groups experience helps us then be more aware of how the language or the framing used in the content we’re editing might be harmful, biased, or discriminatory toward those people and groups. It also helps us better understand when the writing might represent people or characters in stereotyped or stigmatizing ways.
I know I have knowledge gaps when it comes to understanding what other people go through, given that there are many marginalized identities I don’t have and many experiences I don’t face. Therefore, I purposely follow activists in those communities because I don’t belong to them. For example, I follow a lot of disability activists and fat activists because I know that there’s so much I don’t know in those areas. I continually learn about the systems of oppression that these groups face, ableist and fatphobic language, discriminatory practices in healthcare, microaggressions, and how to be a better ally. This has helped me be better equipped when I edit.
Here are various people and organizations I learn from by following them on Twitter:
Disability and neurodivergence: Alice Wong, Lydia X. Z. Brown, Imani Barbarin, Melissa Blake, Cindy Baldwin, RespectAbility, Corin de Freitas, Matthew Cortland, Pine
Fat activism: Sarah Hollowell, Aubrey Gordon, Amanda Martínez Beck, Ragen Chastain, She’s All Fat. Sarah Hollowell’s wonderful guide on writing fat characters also lists a bunch of accounts to follow at the end.
I encourage you to seek out accounts that talk about issues facing communities that are different from your own. Not only will doing so benefit your skills as an editor, but it might also challenge you to think about who you are and how you fit into the world.
