Ah,,,,the temptation. The angst. When you are editing someone else's work and you feel that you could express their thoughts so much better than they did. I did this once (because the writing was terrible). And after feeling the wrath of the author - never again. I learned to respect the author's words and right to make bad word choices, despite the fact that it wasn't like I would have written it..... good luck as a copy editor and it's a good lesson to learn earlier rather than later.