As aspiring authors, we hear it often: polish, polish, polish before you submit. Agents and publishers and industry experts all say it’s one of the most important things you can do. And of course, we know it’s important. But for many of us, we never really stop to think about why that’s so.

Consider it from the editor’s perspective. Author Lynne Barrett, guest posting in The Review Review, points out, “The editor wants nothing more than to read something so fresh and powerful and polished there is no question it must be [published.] Instead the editor, having read 17 things this morning, keeps going, thinking: “A run-on sentence in the first line!” The editor reads till unable to process any more, goes to get some more coffee, and starts again, resolving not to give in to the temptation to say no as fast as possible in order to…