Disagreement on word choice

[mvditor]

I recently had my first article, "Giving Constructive Criticism," accepted by Constant Content. I made a change suggested by the editor, but disagreed with his or her word choice.

My sentence originally read "In the long run, however, it takes less time to provide constructive criticism and effect behavioral change than it does to keep correcting the destructive behavior."

The editor changed it to affect rather than effect. My intent was to convey "bring about behavioral change." With the editor's choice of affect, the sentence now means "have an effect on behavioral change." I wanted to bring about change, not simply affect behavior.

Should I always make the changes suggested by the editor? Should I have explained why I used effect rather than affect and resubmitted as originally written?

Thanks for your help. I value another set of eyes looking at my writing because I know the editor's intent is to make it better.

[Judith]

I think a "note to the editor" in the summary might be effective. Explain why you prefer "affect" instead of "effect" so the editor understand the point you wish to make. It's worth a try!

[DavidBulley]

Here is another example of the editor either being completely careless or ignorant. The sentence was correct in the first example and then "corrected" to be wrong. Incorrect use of a grammar checker is clearly the problem.

[jadedragon]

Our editors are humans but they are very sharp. Pretty sure the writers make a lot more mistakes than the editors.

[Celeste Stewart]

A few weeks ago I wrote about a city called Ljubljana. I was worried about spelling the city's name correctly so I copied and pasted it -- ignorantly copying and pasting the word Ljubljanica (the name of the river that runs through the city). Thank goodness that CC's editor caught that one and rejected my article, saving me, the customer, and Constant-Content from embarassment. I thought that was a good catch on the editor's part.