I find this is not true when the person is the subject of a Q&A format piece. I used to file these with the tortured syntax or some transitional phrase intact. That all gets cut by editors (who actually expect I will cut it first, and organize or rearrange sentences to the greatest effect).

It’s also routine, in my experience, for phrases like “I think” to be cut from direct quotes, which then start with the thought, which to me are on the fringe of being extraneous, but arguably are important qualifying statements.

I agree, Michael. I do make a faithful effort to retain not only the meaning of the quotes, but the spirit in which things were said (when cutting), etc. But I do clean up, judiciously. It benefits the piece and it’s not unusual for an interviewee to request it and say, “You’ll clean that up a bit won’t you!” They don’t want to read their tortured syntax. Having been on the other side of the fence and interviewed myself, I feel the same way. Where it can get tricky is when accents or regionalisms come in. Do you keep them, or clean up? A simplistic grammatical example would be a double negative. But I love accents and would hate to erase them. I often talk to editors about this, case by case.

When reporting abroad and using a translator, I find that I need to clean up the translator’s translations, which are often in less-than-perfect English. I often go back and forth with the translator to be sure I have the correct interpretation of what the interviewee said. Then I do my best to preserve the meaning of the interviewee’s statements. I don’t see any other way to handle a quote that’s been translated into a version of English that, if used word-for-word, wouldn’t make any sense.