Copy Editing

Once you’re happy with the structure and contents of your book it’s time to make sure everything in there is coherent, engaging and unambiguous.

Copy editing is the process that gets your manuscript ready for the reader by reviewing the contents and bringing the spelling, grammar and punctuation into line.

Perhaps the quickest way to answer that question is to divide the job into two broad categories.

(1) Applying an overall style and correcting the text.

This involves:

• correcting and standardising the grammar, spelling and punctuation 
• checking and formatting the referencing and index
• marking up the text elements for the typesetter

(2) Looking at the content to make sure it says what it means to say, without mistakes and as clearly as possible.

This involves:

• making sure the text is coherent and doesn’t contradict itself
• picking up on ambiguities and inconsistency in the phrasing and details
• checking and editing tables, graphs and figures
• identifying material that is potentially offensive, insensitive or non-inclusive
• fact checking and amending or querying as necessary

What about things like tone, sentence structure and word choice?

Yes, they are definitely part of the overall copy-editing process. They come under the heading of line editing, which focuses on the organisation and presentation of content. It involves rewriting to improve style or eliminate ambiguity, reorganising and tightening the text line by line. So while copy editing thinks in terms of correctness and consistency, line editing thinks about flow and clarity.

It’s often easier to think of this as a separate job because writers sometimes want line editing by itself, but it is easily combined with copy editing.

The main body of the text is marked up onscreen in Word, which means it comes back to you with lots of red lines in it (other colours are available). All changes are recorded like this so that you can decide what to keep or discard.

Anything in the text which can’t be addressed without your input is recorded as an author query, and amendments are made when you’ve had the chance to look over these and respond.

What you’ll get back is an edited manuscript along with author queries, a style sheet showing the style decisions made, and any other documentation needed to explain things.

I will provide a quotation upfront with a set fee based on my assessment. This way you know what you will pay before the work starts.

Yes they are. I will provide a sample copy edit based on a short extract from your work.

You’ll get back the marked up document along with a list of queries and a style sheet so you can get a good idea of what the job entails and how I go about it.

All questions answered by contacting me here.