When I describe myself as a copyeditor, I literally mean I’m an editor who edits copy (as opposed to being a video editor or sound editor). I use this term for simplicity’s sake. I actually do other types of editing, not just copyediting.
Copyediting in itself is a lot more specific than that. It’s a step in the editing process involving specific tasks, responsibilities and priorities.
In this post, I’ll share my take on what copyediting is. My views are inspired by the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading’s official definition of copyediting and my own real-life experiences of helping clients with their writing.
What does copyediting involve?
The traditional editing process, as it is widely accepted, has four stages. Copyediting is stage three.
- Developmental editing
- Line editing
- Copyediting
- Proofreading
I say “the traditional editing process” because editors don’t necessarily follow this process for every text. For a book, I probably would. For a blog post, I almost definitely wouldn’t.
But let’s think about copyediting in terms of the traditional editing process.
When copyediting, I focus on:
- Reviewing and correcting problems with grammar, spelling and punctuation
- Checking that any changes made during the line editing phase haven’t introduced errors and typos
- Ensuring that everything is where it should be (pictures, graphs, tables, etc.)
- Ensuring consistent style:
- Formatting: checking elements like headings, page numbers and indentation. For example, you don’t want to have left-aligned text on one page and justified text on another. I’ll make sure you don’t.
- Language: checking spelling and punctuation. For example, I check that you haven’t written the name “Megan” at the start and “Meghan” at the end and that you haven’t used an en dash (–) in one paragraph and an em dash (—) in another.
- Checking consistency in facts, opinions and descriptions. For example, I’ll check that you haven’t said April is the best time to visit Langkawi in one paragraph and that it’s October in another.
If line editing is opinionated and stylistic, copyediting is technical and mechanical. It’s the stage that focuses on style and formatting to ensure accuracy and consistency. It gives your writing a professional and tidy finish.
What happens before copyediting?
- Developmental editing
- Line editing
- Copyediting
- Proofreading
Developmental/structural editing and line editing are the two steps that come before copyediting. I wanted to focus on copyediting in this post, so I’ll only give a brief overview of what these stages involve.
- Developmental editing (some people like to call it structural editing) involves a broad, big-picture focus. The minutiae of how you’ve written something don’t really matter here; what matters is what you’ve written and where you’ve written it. During this phase, an editor assesses the text’s content, structure and flow, suggesting improvements. They might suggest a more logical chapter order, highlight where detail is sparse or flag inconsistencies with the heading structure within chapters.
- Line editing involves making edits to make your writing sound better and achieve its goal more effectively. Here, the focus is word choice, tone and sentence structure. It involves a lot of rearranging and tweaking. When I line edit, I don’t deal with spelling, punctuation or formatting; I would handle these issues when copyediting. For shorter texts, I combine line editing and copyediting as a joint service.
What happens after copyediting?
- Developmental editing
- Line editing
- Copyediting
- Proofreading
After copyediting, the text should be finished. No further edits should be made after this point. However, that’s not to say the text is perfect and ready to publish. There might be some typos you have missed. This is where proofreading comes in.
Proofreading is the final error check that all writers need to invest in. It’s dedicated quality control of text and layout to guarantee perfection and give you peace of mind.
If you have written something like a book or report, you’d have your text typeset after copyediting. Typesetting is the process of arranging the content into its final format. After this has been done, you need to hire a proofreader to flag and remove all remaining typographical errors.
What does copyediting not involve?
Copyediting does not involve the following:
- Reviewing syntax and word choice to make your writing “sound better”
- Giving you advice on structure and the sequence of information
- Writing or rewriting large sections of text
- Overhauling the writer’s tone, structure or argument
- Fact-checking (unless otherwise agreed)
Does copyediting remove every single error?
After your text has been copyedited, it would be unrealistic to expect there to be no errors whatsoever.
When copyediting, the editor focuses on many things – not just spelling, grammar and punctuation. They are still suggesting changes to your text that will enhance it.
For complete peace of mind, you need to have your text proofread. Catching and fixing errors is the dedicated focus of proofreading. At the proofreading stage, no changes will be made to text that’s “good enough”.
Can you copyedit and proofread at the same time?
No. If you have made edits to a piece of writing, you need to proofread it separately in another sweep.
Copyediting naturally involves proofreading for mistakes, but it’s not the sole focus. When I proofread, 100% of my attention is on finding and fixing typographical errors.
Benefits of having your text copyedited
Here are some quick benefits of having your text copyedited:
- It makes your text as clear as possible so that it communicates your message without distracting or confusing your reader.
- It gives your text/document a consistent and tidy finish, making you or your business seem professional and detail-oriented.
- It helps ensure there are no factual errors in your text due to inconsistency, i.e., it flags inconsistent terminology and spelling.
Is there a difference between copyediting, copy-editing and copy editing?
Copyediting, copy-editing and copy editing are three different ways to write the same word. I’ve chosen to use “copyediting” in my business as it’s the simplest version. Other versions are just as acceptable.
Send me a message to discuss how I can help improve your writing through copyediting or any other type of editing. I can assess your text and tell you what you need.