Editing Writer (section)

===Interpretive and academic===
====Biographer====
{{Main|List of biographers}}
Biographers write an account of another person's life. [[Richard Ellmann]] (1918–1987), for example, was an eminent and award-winning biographer whose work focused on the Irish writers [[James Joyce]], [[W. B. Yeats|William Butler Yeats]], and [[Oscar Wilde]]. For the Wilde biography, he won the 1989 [[Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography|Pulitzer Prize for Biography]].

====Critic====
{{Main|Critic}}
Critics consider and assess the extent to which a work succeeds in its purpose. The work under consideration may be literary, theatrical, musical, artistic, or architectural. In assessing the success of a work, the critic takes account of why it was done – for example, why a text was written, for whom, in what style, and under what circumstances. After making such an assessment, critics write and publish their evaluation, adding the value of their scholarship and thinking to substantiate any opinion. The theory of criticism is an area of study in itself: a good critic understands and is able to incorporate the theory behind the work they are evaluating into their assessment.<ref name=Habib>For example, see {{cite book|last=Habib|first= M.A.R.|title=A History of Literary Criticism and Theory|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofliterar0000habi|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|location=MA, USA; Oxford, UK; Victoria, Australia|isbn=978-0-631-23200-1}}</ref> Some critics are already writers in another genre. For example, they might be novelists or essayists. Influential and respected writer/critics include the art critic [[Charles Baudelaire]] (1821–1867) and the literary critic [[James Wood (critic)|James Wood]] (born 1965), both of whom have books published containing collections of their criticism. Some critics are poor writers and produce only superficial or unsubstantiated work. Hence, while anyone can be an uninformed critic, the notable characteristics of a good critic are understanding, insight, and an ability to write well.

{{Quotation|''We can claim with at least as much accuracy as a well-known writer claims of his little books, that no newspaper would dare print what we have to say. Are we going to be very cruel and abusive, then? By no means: on the contrary, we are going to be impartial. We have no friends – that is a great thing – and no enemies.''<br />[[Charles Baudelaire]], introducing his Review of the [[Salon (Paris)|Paris Salon]] of 1845<ref name=Mayne>{{cite book|last=Baudelaire|first=Charles|title=Baudelaire – Art in Paris 1845–1862: Reviews of Salons and other exhibitions|year=1965|publisher=Phaidon Press|location=London|page=1|editor-last=Mayne|editor-first=Jonathan|translator-last=Mayne|translator-first=Jonathan|chapter=The Salon of 1845}}</ref>}}

====Editor====
{{Main|Editing|Copywriting}}
[[File:Un Cœur simple (manuscrito).jpg|thumb|Flaubert's heavily edited page of his manuscript for [[Three Tales (Flaubert)#"A Simple Heart"|Un Cœur simple]]]]

An editor prepares literary material for publication. The material may be the editor's own original work but more commonly, an editor works with the material of one or more other people. There are different types of editor. [[Copy editing|Copy editors]] format text to a particular style and/or correct errors in grammar and spelling without changing the text substantively. On the other hand, an editor may suggest or undertake significant changes to a text to improve its readability, sense or structure. This latter type of editor can go so far as to excise some parts of the text, add new parts, or restructure the whole. The work of editors of ancient texts or [[manuscript]]s or collections of works results in differing editions. For example, there are many editions of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s plays by notable editors who also contribute original introductions to the resulting publication.<ref>{{cite book|last=Warner|first=Beverley Ellison|title=Famous Introductions to Shakespeare's Plays by the Notable Editors of the Eighteenth Century (1906)|date = 2012|publisher=HardPress|isbn=978-1290807081}}</ref> Editors who work on journals and newspapers have varying levels of responsibility for the text. They may write original material, in particular editorials, select what is to be included from a range of items on offer, format the material, and/or fact check its accuracy.

====Encyclopaedist====
[[File:Printing3 Walk of Ideas Berlin.JPG|thumb|Sculpture in Berlin depicting a stack of books on which are inscribed the names of great writers: [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]; [[Bertolt Brecht|Brecht]]; [[Thomas Mann|Mann]]; [[Theodor Fontane|Fontane]]; [[Hermann Hesse|Hesse]]; [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]]; [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]]; [[Heinrich Böll|Böll]]; [[Karl Marx|Marx]]; [[Brothers Grimm]]; [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]; [[Anna Seghers|Seghers]]; [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]; [[Martin Luther|Luther]]; [[Heinrich Heine|Heine]]; [[Hannah Arendt|Arendt]]; [[Günter Grass|Grass]] ]]

{{Main|Encyclopedia}}
Encyclopaedists create organised bodies of knowledge. [[Denis Diderot]] (1713–1784) is renowned for his contributions to the ''[[Encyclopédie]]''. The encyclopaedist [[Bernardino de Sahagún]] (1499–1590) was a [[Franciscans|Franciscan]] whose ''Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España'' is a vast encyclopedia of [[Mesoamerica]]n civilization, commonly referred to as the ''[[Florentine Codex]]'', after the Italian manuscript library which holds the best-preserved copy.

====Essayist====
{{Main|List of essayists}}

Essayists write essays, which are original pieces of writing of moderate length in which the author makes a case in support of an opinion. They are usually in [[prose]], but some writers have used poetry to present their argument.

====Historian====
{{See also|List of historians}}
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it.<ref name="wordnetprinceton">{{cite web |url=http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=Historian |title= Historian |publisher=Wordnetweb.princeton.edu |access-date=28 June 2008}}</ref> The purpose of a historian is to employ [[Historiography|historical analysis]] to create coherent narratives that explain "what happened" and "why or how it happened". Professional historians typically work in colleges and universities, archival centers, government agencies, museums, and as freelance writers and consultants.<ref>Anthony Grafton and Robert B. Townsend, "The Parlous Paths of the Profession" [http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2008/0810/0810pro1.cfm ''Perspectives on History'' (Sept. 2008) online]</ref> [[Edward Gibbon]]'s six-volume ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire|History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'' influenced the development of [[historiography]].

====Lexicographer====
{{Main|Lexicography}}
Writers who create dictionaries are called lexicographers. One of the most famous is [[Samuel Johnson]] (1709–1784), whose ''[[A Dictionary of the English Language|Dictionary of the English Language]]'' was regarded not only as a great personal scholarly achievement but was also a dictionary of such pre-eminence, that would have been referred to by such writers as [[Jane Austen]].

====Researcher/Scholar====
{{Main|Research|Scholarly method}}

Researchers and scholars who write about their discoveries and ideas sometimes have profound effects on society. Scientists and philosophers are good examples because their new ideas can revolutionise the way people think and how they behave. Three of the best known examples of such a revolutionary effect are [[Nicolaus Copernicus]], who wrote ''[[De revolutionibus orbium coelestium]]'' (1543); [[Charles Darwin]], who wrote ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' (1859); and [[Sigmund Freud]], who wrote ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]'' (1899).

These three highly influential, and initially very controversial, works changed the way people understood their place in the world. Copernicus's [[Heliocentrism|heliocentric]] view of the cosmos displaced humans from their previously accepted place at the center of the universe; Darwin's evolutionary theory placed humans firmly within, as opposed to above, the order of manner; and Freud's ideas about the power of the [[unconscious mind]] overcame the belief that humans were consciously in control of all their own actions.<ref name=Weinert>{{cite book|last=Weinert|first=Friedel|title=Copernicus, Darwin and Freud: Revolutions in the History and Philosophy of Science|year=2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=Malden, Massachusetts, USA; Oxford UK|isbn=978-1-4051-8184-6}}</ref>

====Translator====
{{Main|Translation}}
Translators have the task of finding some equivalence in another language to a writer's meaning, intention and style. Translators whose work has had very significant cultural effect include [[Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar]], who translated ''[[Euclid's Elements|Elements]]'' from [[Greek language|Greek]] into [[Arabic]] and [[Jean-François Champollion]], who deciphered [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]] with the result that he could publish the first translation of the [[Rosetta Stone]] hieroglyphs in 1822. Difficulties with translation are exacerbated when words or phrases incorporate rhymes, rhythms, or [[pun]]s; or when they have connotations in one language that are non-existent in another. For example, the title of ''[[Le Grand Meaulnes]]'' by [[Alain-Fournier]] is supposedly untranslatable because "no English adjective will convey all the shades of meaning that can be read into the simple [French] word 'grand' which takes on overtones as the story progresses."<ref name=Gopnik>{{cite book|last1=Gopnik|first1=Adam|title="Introduction" to the English translation of "Le Grand Meaulnes"|date=2007|publisher=Penguin Books|location=London|isbn=9780141441894|page=vii–viii}}</ref> Translators have also become a part of events where political figures who speak different languages meet to look into the relations between countries or solve political conflicts. It is highly critical for the translator to deliver the right information as a drastic impact could be caused if any error occurred.

{{Quotation|''Even if translation is impossible – we have no choice but to do it: to take the next step and start translating. ... The translator's task is to make us either forget or else enjoy the difference.''<br />[[Robert Dessaix]], translator, author<ref>{{cite book|last=Dessaix|first=Robert|title="Dandenongs Gothic: On Translation" in (and so forth)|year=1998|publisher=Pan MacMillan Australia Ltd|location=Sydney|isbn=0-7329-0943-0|pages=307|author-link=Robert Dessaix}}</ref>}}