A lifetime ago, I served in the Navy as a journalist, and I had the poor fortune of having to edit the work of a friend. One day, he called me aside and told me this story, in the guise of a joke. I know now that it was more allegory than joke, and that the story was a thinly veiled shot at my paltry editing skills.

The story went like this:

A writer and an editor are stranded in the desert. At the same time, they see an oasis in the distance. They run toward a beautiful, blue lake full of clear, cool water. The writer immediately sticks his face in the lake and begins to drink deeply. After a time, he hears a strange noise. He looks up to see the editor urinating in the water.

"What the hell are you doing?" the writer asked.

"I'm making the water better," the editor replied.

At the time, I was a bit too dense to realize that he was telling me I had just peed in his water. I have since come to my senses, and my friend remains my friend to this day—so much so, in fact, that my children call him "Uncle."

Years and years later, he still gives me rations of crap about the time I peed in his water. I take this abuse stoically, because I know I deserve it.

I hadn't thought of that story for years, until I joined the Bleacher Report a couple of months ago. Since then, quite a few members have viewed my stories and edited them. A select few Bleacher Creatures have genuinely improved my stories: Mosang Miles and Sean Wagman come immediately to mind.

But more often than not, I have received editing strictly for the sake of editing. I do not believe this is the spirit of the Bleacher Report's editing feature.

Rather, I feel that some folks have been peeing in my water.

Mosang Miles is the rare Bleacher Creature that is both a good writer and a good editor. Not only have I accepted his edits, I have, on occasion, asked for his opinion on my articles, including this one. He has a good eye and a deft touch.

Sean Wagman read one of my more recent articles and liked it, but decided to play with one of the sentences. This bothered me until I realized that he had changed my sentence from passive voice to active voice. Written English almost always reads better in active voice. It was a great catch, and I told him so.

There have been other members who have genuinely sought to improve the quality of my articles, but they have been the exception rather than the rule.

Here are just a couple of pieces of advice for those of you who are simply peeing in the water. You may know who you are, but you probably don't.

1. Familiarize yourself with the Associated Press Style Guide and Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.

If you've never heard of these books, you have no business editing anything, anywhere, at any time.

2. If you see a word/phrase/sentence you don't like, read it to yourself out loud and see if it sounds awkward.

If it does, fix it. If it doesn't, leave it alone.

3. Try very hard not to replace words and phrases with your own.

As an editor, I was very guilty of this offense. When you do this, you inject your own voice into another person's article. No matter how smart you are (or think you are), your voice doesn't belong in another person's article. Save it for your own.

4. Know your punctuation.

If you see punctuation that appears ungainly to you, take a good look at it before you edit it. If you think the article will be genuinely improved by deleting a comma, or inserting a semicolon, then make the change. If you simply don't like the punctuation, consider leaving it alone.

I could offer more pieces of advice, but those four guidelines are a good start.

Someone—maybe several someones—will undoubtedly edit this article. If/when they do, I will probably laugh and change it back. One of the great things about the Bleacher Report is that you can veto the edits. Therefore, the pee sits on the surface of your water like oil, and can be easily filtered out.

I have not written this article to discourage would-be editors. Despite my larger-than-average ego, I welcome the chance for improvement, and I'm sure most others do as well. Just don't edit a story simply because you feel like it.

I'm sure I'm not the only Bleacher Creature with sensitive taste buds.