Dear Geist,

: two misspelled words, a punctuation mistake, one wrong verb tense and an erroneous “correction” of a street name. Should I withdraw the story, or ask what happened, or just shut up and correct the mistakes, or . . .?

Dear Alarmed,

Approach the editor as you would want to be approached: ask about the errors politely but directly. Perhaps the draft is a proposed reshaping of the story, for which they’re seeking your approval before spending time on a detail edit, and someone forgot to say so in the cover letter. Or maybe the wrong version of the tracked text was accidentally emailed to you, or a trainee did the edit and it slipped through without getting checked by a supervisor. And maybe the editor simply (shudder) blew it. If you don’t get an immediate apology and coherent explanation, you can certainly withdraw the story. Or you can ask to proof the typeset copy on finished composed pages before the magazine goes to press—a bit risky, but maybe preferable if it’s a prestige publication. Let us know what happens!