A magazine asked for editors on Twitter, and several people passed it on. Great thing about Twitter – I have food for thought.

Requirements include excellent language and grammar skills, which makes sense. How does one prove this on a resume? I bet prior editing experience would be good. What else? If you have no experience, how would you get there?

I have a friend whose grammar is stellar. She always corrects my Midwestern turns of phrase which leaves prepositions at the end. While I have some quirks, my grammar isn’t horrible. That said, I couldn’t prove it on a resume. Gee, I’ve had more calculus classes than most English majors think exist, but not a single literature course in college. Rhetoric fulfilled a requirement; we never talked about how to use the language. Somehow I ended up a writer anyway. Not that being a writer necessarily means great grammar or spelling or even good use of language. It helps. It separates the mediocre from the good and the great.

That still leaves me with how I’d prove it on a resume. I think the short answer is, I can’t.