Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a useful innovation that has helped and continues to help writers today. There are online content idea generators, rephrasing apps, and editing apps. This has led to a debate on the topic of “editing apps vs. human editors” Given the number of editing apps that are readily available, you may wonder why you need to hire a human editor for your book. Well, let us take a look at the advantages that human editors have over editing apps.
Humans Understand Context
You have to understand the scenario or context in which a statement is made, in order to fully comprehend what a writer means. The context helps you understand the intended meaning of the writer when an ambiguous word is used.
In other words, the context in which a word is used reveals which meaning an ambiguous word takes, and that makes all the difference. Human editors get the full picture or context from a text and are better able to understand which words and sentences to correct and which should be left intact.
On the other hand, editing apps do not understand the context. Their programming is limited to mostly looking at sentence structure and spelling. This prevents them from recognizing that while a spelling may look wrong, it may not necessarily be wrong, given the context and the larger picture.
Humans Have Experience
In the course of their day-to-day activities and interactions, editors pick up new vocabulary and have a range of experiences that form their reference points and background knowledge, which will come in handy when editing documents.
However, editing apps are inanimate and do not have any experience. They are programmed with a limited range of data.
No matter how expansive the programming of an editing app may be, it cannot surpass the combination of vocabulary, experiences, and human interactions that a team of editors with various educational qualifications, personal and professional experiences, a human network, and a voracious appetite for continuous learning would have.
Editors Study the Origin of Words
Every word has an origin. The study of the origin of a language is called etymology. Nevertheless, as people of different origins who speak different languages interact, they are likely to pick up a few words from each other’s languages. As a result, you find some words that do not originally belong to a language creeping into that language.
For example, the English language borrows from Spanish, Latin and French languages. The words mosquito, renegade, patio and ranch are of Spanish origin. Acumen, aplomb, insipid and debilitate come from Latin. The words apostrophe, avant-garde, pot-pourri and cul-de-sac all have French origin. Some of these words have become anglicized even though they originate from other languages.
Editors and proofreaders study the etymology of words and take this into consideration when proofing a text. Another way in which etymology helps editors is that it helps with tonal markings. It also provides a deeper knowledge of the language in question. Etymology helps editors build their vocabulary and spell unfamiliar words easily.
Editing apps do not have this background knowledge. So, they cannot be as in-depth or intuitive as human editors who have this knowledge.
Humans are Multilingual
It is common for fiction— and even non-fiction texts— to include words from a language different from the language in which the bulk of the text is written. That is called code-switching. In literary texts, code-switching allows the characters to express themselves genuinely. It also reveals some characteristics of the characters, such as where they are from, their level of education, and the kind of relationship that exists between the characters who are speaking.
Also, some apps can translate words from one language to another, but they may not follow the grammatical rules of the language they are translating to. Therefore, they leave you with messy structures that are just a collection of words with no meaning at the sentence level.
Editing apps are usually configured to understand just one language or different variations of the same language, such as US English and UK English. Unfortunately, they may not be able to understand and properly edit strips of conversations or words that have no English equivalents. Instead, the apps would flag those words as non-words or wrongly-spelt words. This, therefore, puts multilingual human editors at an advantage.
Languages Evolves as Humans Evolve
Every day, language is evolving. With the widespread use of social media, language is changing, and people are communicating in different ways that vary as time goes by. As language evolves, professional editors stay abreast of the changes.
Conventions change too, and what was unacceptable in a language some years ago may have become acceptable today. For instance, the word “severally” is used to mean separately. However, in recent times it has come to also mean repeatedly.
In such a situation, editing apps may have just one definition and might flag the word when it is used in a context that the app is not familiar with. Unless developers include this meaning in the next upgrade, the app may keep indicating a wrong use of the word.
The changes in a language are made by humans, as a result of trends and new conventions. It implies that humans first start applying these new rules before editing apps get reconfigured and updated. The apps get the update only after humans have grasped the new rules and applied them.
Humans Are Intuitive
Since language is an organ of society, people make the rules of a language. That means that language is conventional. There are rules that govern the grammar and word formation of a language. These rules also direct the semantics of the language. A good editor knows and adheres to these rules. Editors know that it takes logic, knowledge of syntactical rules, in-house style guides, and other style guides to successfully edit a written document. They also know that when the rules do not provide for certain situations, their intuition and experience must come into play.
Meanwhile, editing apps do not know the rules of a language, except those programmed into them. They have no background knowledge, logic, or experience to fall back on when they are presented with situations that their programmers did not factor in or anticipate. Apps are not intuitive enough to come up with rules that can fix an unforeseen contextual error. This makes them fall short when certain situations arise during editing.
The use of AI in editing is fast becoming the norm. However, human editors still have the upper hand or advantage over apps. The intuition and experiences of professional editors still tower over the programming of editing apps. If you want editors that will retain your voice and give your document a human touch, reach us at My Sharp Pen Editing Services.
RELATED POST 7 Important Benefits of Proofreading