in [backspace backspace] Sheesh!

-------------- <=Here it is!

It kinda depends.... What's your relationship with the writer? Are you getting paid, or doing it as a favor? How was the request phrased, as a "Can you look this over for me?" or a "I really need some editing help; do you have some time"? Is the prose grammatically incorrect, or just boring to read?

You don't have to answer all that here, just think about the context and what she actually asked you for. I find that tends to guide where the line goes.

In general, though, I find that "Awkward phrasing" written the margins can be a godsend when I want to fix things but don't really feel the author is expecting me to be hugely detailed. Questions in the margins are also good; they're less dictatorial than commands. "I'm a bit confused -- is this the same idea as before? Can you link it better?" or "Could you delete X and tighten this up a bit?" or "Something here is not really flowing -- maybe try Z?"

Good luck and my sympathies. I hate editing bad text when I don't have rewrite permission.

Another thought: One of my bosses when I was doing book work would edit in two colors -- red for things that *had* to be changed for grammatical or legal reasons, green for stylistic suggestions that we were free to incorporate or not. Since then I've tried to edit with those distinctions in mind (though I don't bother with different colors). So "This is grammatically incorrect" changes get marked very definitely with the proper proofreading marks; everything else gets phrased with a lot of "what if you..." and "could you try..." and "maybe it might work to..." and beaucoup de question marks.

I think of it as friendly editing.

Be a hardass. I wish someone had been a hardass with me when I was writing my senior thesis.