Editing..Does it really need 6 times?

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   Nell Roseposted 5 years ago

   I recently noticed that one of my hubs was taking forever to be edited. It had been at the top of google for years or near the top. So I mentioned it on here and now its done so thank you for that. But......
   
   I looked to see how many times it had been edited. 6!
   Why? and why are lots of my other hubs edited so many times?
   Surely the point of editing is to read through and get rid of the mistakes and just well, edit it!
   
   Does doing it 6 times mean that the first 5 edits were done wrong?
   Don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate the fact that we get free editing. Its awesome!
   
   But surely, two points, 1, Editing only takes one time, not 6, and 2, wouldn't it be better to edit it before it goes live?
   
   Sorry for being pedantic lol! Just confused!
   The way I see it, is if its good enough for the top page of google, it can't get better can it?

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      Christy Kirwanposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Sometimes editors will close out edits while waiting for photos and in between doing the work. This might cause your article to register multiple edits when they were really just phases of the original edit. That said, we do occasionally edit articles multiple times (though usually not 6 times) as our standards and SEO best practices around growing traffic get more sophisticated.

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         Nell Roseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Christy, sorry if I sounded like I was moaning, lol! just confused! I do appreciate all you do

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            Christy Kirwanposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Not a problem, I can see where 6 edits would look confusing!

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago

   I agree, Nell!  I've had a few articles edited more than once.  By the 'bot,' then by 'pro,' then again for something else.
   
   It certainly is confusing, and does feel as if the job is not done thoroughly in the first place. 
   
   While we're on the topic, it's very hard to meet 'editing standards' when mixed messages are sent.  More than once (nay, many times), I've had an article edited to 'correct' title case, when I actually used their suggested title case website, and followed what came from that, (by copy/paste, no less, so no typos), only to have an editor come along and change it.
   
   So, remembering that change, I follow the editor's preference the next time around, and gee whillikers, surprise, surprise, it gets 'corrected' again to the way it was on the case-setting website!
   
   Confusing?  Yes.  Aggravating?  In the extreme!  I'm throwing in the towel, and I'm just going to make my titles the way I was taught back in high school journalism class!

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      Venkatachari Mposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I hope the staff might as well get frustrated for doing it so many times!

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago

   Indeed! It sure seems rather petty to be so nit-picky about title case.  Grammar, sure; fix away.  Spelling, yes; important. Proper sentence structure and "flow," also important .
   But to worry about whether or not words such as "be," " and, "if," or " of" are capitalized or not; please! That alone is not going to determine or detract from the "professionalism" of an article,  particularly when the decisions/standards thereon are inconsistent, as I have found them to be!

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      MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I had them change my subheads in my latest hub, and they explained they were using APA style (American Psychological Association). I can't figure out why they would use an academic style on a magazine-type website. I prefer the less formal of AP (Associated Press) or Chicago. I think APA is too formal. I was taught to never capitalize prepositions or articles in a title unless it was the first word, both in English grammar and journalism.

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         DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Agreed, MsBJ!   I learned, both in English classes, and journalism, that words of 3 or fewer letters need not be capitalized (unless they are the first word in a sentence), regardless of what part of speech they are!

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      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      The APA style is used here with a tilt to what HP wants, and it varies from editor to editor. I was told that a useful tool is capitalizemytitle.com. It also helps with sentence structure.
      
      I learned articles "be" "if" et al should never be capitalized. But if they are 4 or 5 letter articles, check the link above, they break the APA rule.

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         MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         "Be" and "if" aren't articles. "Be," "am," "are," "was," and "is," are are short verbs which are usually capitalized because a sentence is not complete without a verb; "if" is a subordinate conjunction, and conjunctions, including "and" and "but" are not usually capped. Older styles limited capitalization to the importance of words in sentences such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, then adjectives, adverbs, etc. Are the grammar police changing the rules now to limit capitalization to word size? That is starting to sound like a free-for-all. Where would one draw the line?
         
         I don't mind using one of the hub tools to make titles in hubs consistent with HP's idiosyncrasies, but in my writings elsewhere, I still tend to follow feature writing style that I learned in journalism classes in college.

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            Rochelle Frankposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Exactly the way learned it. Thanks Ms. BJ.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, the grammar police are out in full force and with many inconsistencies. I wrote that last post in haste and called the wrong words articles. The administration is at war over words with four or more letters in a title.

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               MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Jean, I don't think any of them know what a stylebook is. They are great with computers, but that is the way of technology people. They quote APA (wrongly), but they need to sit down and actually study a NON-academic stylebook.

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                  Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks MizBejabbers,
                  They say when you think it's everyone else, it's you! But I've had so many issues over petty things I feel cranky lately. I haven't written anything in a long time, and I have many creative ideas. I spend all my time here correcting what I mostly wrote in 2011, so the articles can be on niches.
                  
                  I have 19 hubs left...

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         DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         That is the exact website I use(d), Jean, based on HP's own recommendation!  And STILL they change things!  Arrrgggghhh!!!

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   Robinposted 5 years ago

   We have said to use capitalizemytitle.com EXCEPT it doesn't account for all words that are four letters or more and you should capitalize those words in your title, e.g., "with" is often not capitalized in the tool.  We try to be consistent and have adopted one style guide, which is APA.  We do have our own HubPages style guide as well, but it is constantly being edited and updated since grammatical conventions are dynamic.  Here are the specific guidelines for capitalizing titles in APA format:
   
   - Capitalize the first word of the title/heading and of any subtitle/subheading;
   - Capitalize all “major” words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns) in the title/heading, including the second part of hyphenated major words (e.g., Self-Report not Self-report); and
   - Capitalize all words of four letters or more.
   
   From:  http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/ … style.html
   
   I hope you can understand that we are 25 editors and do our very best to be consistent, but grammar nuances are constantly changing and although every HP editor has at least an undergraduate degree, we were trained differently with different style guides.  We meet weekly to discuss grammar edits and how we can be more consistent.  As you can imagine, it's a huge endeavor to try to retain author voice but meet our style guidelines!  Yikes.   
   
   Please let me know where we have quoted APA guidelines incorrectly, MizBejabbers, so we can discuss in our weekly meeting!  Most of our editors are writers and educators first, and we have trained them on the technology aspect of online writing. Thanks for the interesting conversation!

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      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Robin,
      But this is info we should have been told in the beginning, not after submitting and resubmitting articles getting returned over and over for one word. That's just petty.
      
      And although the editors are concerned with tech issues, we are writers, and the creative process matters more to us. So it's hard when we know we have a well written piece and it gets trashed or takes a month to get on a niche site. It alienates writers.

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   psycheskinnerposted 5 years ago

   If this is the rule, put it on the help pages

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   Nell Roseposted 5 years ago

   I hate to come back and be pedantic, but when an article is 'edited' and the word 'How' is changed for 'Hot' in the title I just have to sigh....! As in.....Hot to clean a smelly couch!! Oh and  the photos were all taken out to. Maybe it was the automatic one? but Hot? really?

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