Organized Concepts

What is editing?

Editing involves carefully reviewing material before it is published, and suggesting or making changes to correct and improve material.

There are four general stages of editing:

structural editing
stylistic editing
copy editing
proofreading

My specialities are stylistic editing, copy editing, and proofreading.

Stylistic editing

Assessing and shaping draft material to improve its organization and content. Changes may be suggested to or drafted for the writer. Structural editing may include:

eliminating jargon, clichés, and euphemisms
establishing or maintaining tone, mood, style, and authorial voice or level of formality
adjusting the length and structure of sentences and paragraphs
establishing or maintaining the language level appropriate for the intended audience, medium, and purpose

Also known as line editing.

Let's get in touch if you want to learn how stylistic editing can help.

Copy editing

Editing to ensure correctness, accuracy, consistency, and completeness. It includes:

editing for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage
checking for consistency and continuity of mechanics and facts, including anachronisms, character names, and relationships
editing tables, figures, and lists
notifying designers of any unusual production requirements
developing a style sheet or following one that is provided
correcting or querying general information that should be checked for accuracy

It may also include:

marking levels of headings and the approximate placement of art
Canadianizing or other localizing
converting measurements
providing or changing the system of citations
editing indexes
obtaining or listing permissions needed
checking front matter, back matter, and cover copy
checking web links

Note that "copy editing" is often loosely used to include stylistic editing, structural editing, fact checking, or proofreading.

I'd be happy to discuss how copy editing can help your project.

Proofreading

Examining material after layout or in its final format to correct errors in textual and visual elements. The material may be read in isolation or against a previous version. It includes checking for:

adherence to design
minor mechanical errors (such as spelling mistakes or deviations from style sheet)
consistency and accuracy of elements in the material (such as cross-references, running heads, captions, web page heading tags, hyperlinks, and metadata)

It may also include:

distinguishing between printer's, designer's, or programmer's errors and writer's or editor's alterations
copyfitting
flagging or checking locations of art
inserting page numbers or checking them against content and page references

Proofreading is checking a work after editing; it is not a substitute for editing.

Let's touch base if you need a round of proofing!

looking for somebody to proofread email blasts before hitting the "send" button	trying to create a style guide for your business so everybody is on the same page	finishing off your self-published book and want a "fresh" set of eyes on it
wanting to up your blog post game	determined to make a good first impression with your résumé	wanting to update your technical copy with plain language principles

white papers	websites	manuals
articles	letters	résumés
blog posts	contracts	Q&As
books	epub prep	style guides
brochures	ads	business cases
papers	closed captioning	and more...