Level 2: Rephrasing
This includes Level 1 corrections and also rephrasing for clarity,flow and style, but not substantial rewriting. Many level 2 changes can be made without consulting the author.
"Sometimes, a writer says something they didn't intend to."
Examples
A jazz singer wrote:
Often drunk and argumentative, promoters stopped booking me
He wanted to say he was often drunk and argumentative, but he put those words at the beginning of the sentence (editors call this a 'dangling participle'). So the sentence actually says it was the promoters who were drunk. The writer didn't intend to say this.
A Betterwriter editor noticed this line in a newspaper:
The couple had a 30-minute row as they drove home over her father.
You might ask: why was the wife's father lying in the road? Again, the writer didn't intend to say that. An editor will correct ambiguity by moving the last three words:
The couple had a 30-minute row over her father as they drove home .