Over-used "Cool" Words

In general, editors should let writers decide what goes inside the quotes because the editor wasn't there. Edit unnecessary words from the writer's copy, by all means, but don't fuck with the quotes.

 

You don't automatically edit it out. You edit it out when it is unnecessary. And much of the time "I think" is exactly that. We aren't supposed to be court stenographers here. Part of our job is to pare quotes down to the essentials for the reader.

Now, I'm not advocating doing anything that changes a quote's meaning, or even it's accuracy. But I do think you can pare: "I think our offensive line came up huge today" to "our offensive line came up huge today" without losing anything.

EDIT: I'm speaking here, as a writer, self-editing as you're writing. I don't think a copy editor should screw with anything inside quote marks, at least not without running it by the writer first.