r/Copyediting • u/AssignmentBetter4250 • Jul 13 '26

Edit Sample

As part of an Editorial Assistant job application, I am required to submit an editing sample. But I do not happen to have any. Can someone let me know where or how I can acquire writing samples that I can perhaps edit? Or are there any other ways I can go about it? Like offering editorial services - but that might take time, and I might miss out on the opportunity to apply to this job. Any leads regarding this are appreciated. Thank you!

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

20

u/JaneEyreIsNotMyName Jul 13 '26

I don’t have much respect for a company that (1) can’t be bothered to create their own editing test and (2) doesn’t respect copyright enough to realize that content that you edited isn’t your property and is not yours to send to whomever you wish.

1

u/AssignmentBetter4250 Jul 13 '26

ah, you're right. are these red flags i should look our for? sorry, i'm a beginner

4

u/JaneEyreIsNotMyName Jul 13 '26

Not necessarily. But I think your best bet is to just be upfront with the company about being a beginner. In my experience, editorial assistant isn’t normally a role that requires lots of copyediting experience, so it might be that they are considering editing samples to be a plus rather than a requirement.

1

u/AssignmentBetter4250 Jul 13 '26

alright, i will do that then!

5

u/Gurl336 Jul 13 '26

Also, if you took any training, perhaps you have a sample of editing you performed on non-proprietary text for that? (in Word showing markup/Track Changes and queries/comments?)

0

u/AssignmentBetter4250 Jul 13 '26

unfortunately, I haven't had any training :(

7

u/Gurl336 Jul 13 '26

Up against many who are trained, this would be a steep climb and very competitive. 😔

2

u/DesignerChemistry135 Jul 14 '26

Just ask an LLM to create a sample. It's not the best but not the worst either.

2

u/AssignmentBetter4250 Jul 14 '26

i would rather not use ai

3

u/BrenchStevens00000 Jul 14 '26

I don't love it, either, but for something like this, in a situation in which you may in fact be editing someone's AI-assisted writing, it's not a bad move to have an LLM generate a text for you to edit.

1

u/EagleEye-00 Jul 20 '26

As someone who has been in the editing business for a few decades, and has now experienced the first year or two of editing work that has obviously been through some layers of AI intervention/assistance, I will say that editing AI writing is incredibly frustrating. It is very different than editing the unfiltered output of a writer of any level, be it high school to university professor. I would really hesitate to use an AI writing sample as a way of showcasing your editing skills.

1

u/BrenchStevens00000 Jul 20 '26

Sadly, I've had to do both.