Copy editing


Copy editing is the process of revising written material to improve quality and readability, ensuring that a text is free of errors in grammar and style and that it is accurate. The Chicago Manual of Style states that manuscript editing encompasses "simple mechanical corrections through sentence-level interventions to substantial remedial work on literary style and clarity, disorganized passages, baggy prose, muddled tables and figures, and the like ". In the context of print publication, copy editing is done before typesetting and again before proofreading. Outside traditional book and journal publishing, the term "copy editing" is used more broadly and is sometimes referred to as proofreading; the term sometimes encompasses additional tasks.
Although copy editors are generally expected to make simple revisions to smooth awkward passages, they do not have a license to rewrite a text line by line, nor do they prepare material on an author's behalf. Furthermore, copy editors are expected to query structural and organizational problems, but they are not expected to fix these problems. In addition, copy editors do not normally engage in "developmental editing", which includes helping an author develop an idea into a publishable manuscript, overhauling a rough draft, identifying gaps in subject coverage, devising strategies for more-effective communication of content, creating features to enhance the final product and helping to make it more competitive in the marketplace.
In the United States and Canada, an editor who does this work is called a copy editor. An organization's highest-ranking copy editor, or the supervising editor of a group of copy editors, may be known as the "copy chief", "copy desk chief", or "news editor". In the United Kingdom, the term "copy editor" is used, but in newspaper and magazine publishing, the term is subeditor, commonly shortened to "sub". In the context of the Internet, online copy refers to the textual content of web pages. Similar to print, online copy editing is the process of revising and preparing the raw or draft text of web pages for publication.
Copy editing has three levels: light, medium, and heavy. Depending on the budget and scheduling of the publication, the publisher will let the copy editor know what level of editing to employ. The chosen type of editing will help the copy editor prioritize their efforts.

Practices

Mechanical editing

Mechanical editing is the process of closely reading a piece of writing for consistency, either internally or in accordance with the publisher's house style. According to Einsohn, mechanical editors work with such things as the following:
  • Abbreviations and acronyms
  • Additional elements, such as charts, tables, and graphs
  • Capitalization
  • Footnotes and endnotes
  • Hyphenation
  • Italicization ; appropriate choice of broad typeface category
  • Numbers and numerals
  • Punctuation
  • Quotations
  • Spelling
Gilad also mentions the following:
  • Initialisms
  • Page numbers, headers, and footers
  • Underscoring
Proper spelling and punctuation are subjective in some cases, where they must be left to the discretion of the copy editor or the publisher. Most publishing firms use a widely recognized style guide such as the New Oxford Style Manual, The Chicago Manual of Style and The Canadian Style. Companies that produce documents and reports but do not consider themselves publishers in the usual sense tend to rely on in-house style guides or on the judgment of the copy editor.

Grammar and usage

The goal of the copy editor is to enforce inviolable rules while respecting personal stylistic preferences. This can be difficult, as some writers view grammatical corrections as a challenge to their intellectual ability or professional identity. Therefore, copy editors are encouraged to respect the author's preference if it is acceptable. This practice is complicated further by volatile language conventions as recorded by books on grammar and usage, the authors of which often disagree.

Content editing

Content editing consists of reorganizing or restructuring a document. This involves any inconsistent parts of the content as well as any variances. Content editors can fix the content by either rewriting it or heavily editing it. The copy editor will often point out especially difficult passages to the author, who will resolve the issues.
Although copy editors are not responsible for the factual correctness of the document, they can provide comments for the author on any information that they know to be untrue, such as year discrepancies or misleading ideas. Such fact-checking is acceptable for copy editors who know the document's subject matter.
The copy editor must also point out any biased language without infringing on the author's meaning. This includes material "that might form the basis for a lawsuit alleging libel, invasion of privacy, or obscenity". Some see censoring biased language as political correctness, so the copy editor must distinguish between the two. To do this, the copy editor will permit intentional "politically incorrect" views and censor only marginalized, offensive, or exclusive language.

Correlating parts, typecoding and permissions

Most manuscripts will require the copy editor to correlate the parts within them. Copy editors must carry out the following tasks in this process:
  • Verify any cross-references that appear in the text
  • Check the numbering of footnotes, endnotes, tables and illustrations
  • Specify the placement of tables and illustrations
  • Check the content of the illustrations against the captions and the text
  • Read the list of illustrations against the illustrations and captions
  • Read the table of contents against the manuscript
  • Read the footnotes/endnotes and in-text citations against the bibliography
  • Check the alphabetization of the bibliography or reference list
Some manuscripts may require special cross-checking. For example, in a how-to text, a copy editor might need to verify that the list of equipment or parts matches the instructions given within the text.
Typecoding is the process of identifying which sections of the manuscript are not regular running text. These portions of text, known as elements, include the following:
  • Part and chapter numbers
  • Titles and subtitles
  • Headings and subheadings
  • Lists
  • Extracts
  • Displayed equations
  • Table numbers
  • Source lines
  • Footnotes
  • Figure numbers and captions
It is the copy editor's job to typecode all manuscript elements for the publication designer. Hard-copy copy editors are usually asked to pencil in the type codes in the left margin of the manuscript. On-screen copy editors may be asked to insert type codes at the beginning and end of each element.
Finally, if the manuscript contains long quotations from a published work that is still under copyright, the copy editor should remind the author to acquire permission to reprint those quotations. The same goes for the reprinting of tables, charts, graphs, as well as illustrations that have appeared in print. Rules vary for the reproduction of unpublished materials

Processes

There are basic procedures that every copy editor must follow: copy editors need a system for marking changes to the author's text, a process for querying the author and the editorial coordinator, a method for keeping track of editorial decisions, and procedures for incorporating the author's review of the copyediting into a final document. These systems were originally developed in an era before that of the computer, but over time, these procedures were adapted for a digital on-screen space.
Each medium has its own affordances and, although a copy editor may prefer one editing process over the other, copy editors are practically required to use both techniques.

Hard-copy editing

Traditional markup copyediting, or hard-copy editing, is still important because screening tests for employment may be administered in hard copy. Also, the author whose text the copy editor is editing may prefer hard-copy markup, so copy editors need to know traditional markup in case documents and materials cannot be exchanged electronically. When editing in hard copy, all participating parties must understand the marks the copy editor makes. Copy editors working on hard copy write their corrections in the text directly, leaving the margins for querying. Usually, the copy editor is asked to write in a bright color so that the author and other parties can easily recognize the copy editor's changes.

On-screen editing

Every year, more editing projects are being done on computers and fewer in print. Also, if there is a digital version of a text that the copy editor is editing, the latter can more easily search words, run spell checkers and generate clean copies of messy pages. The first thing copy editors must do when editing on screen is to copy the author's files, as the original document must be preserved. Each word-processing program provides various options for how an editor's markups are shown on screen and on the printout. On-screen editing mainly differs from hard-copy editing in the fact that the copy editor should edit more cleanly on screen, refraining from saving parts of words and be careful in maintaining proper line spacing.

Querying

Copy editors often need to query their authors to address questions, comments, or explanations: most of these can be done in the margins of the text, or the comment section when on screen. The copy editor must consider when to query and the length and tone of their queries, as querying too often or seldom, cryptically, or sarcastically can result in a negative relationship between the copy editor and the author.

Goals

A copy editor's goals may change, depending on the publication for which they work; however, there are a few constituencies that must always be served the author, the publisher and the readers. These parties work to achieve the same goal, namely, to produce an error-free publication and improve the reader experience by reducing extraneous cognitive load. The copy editor strives to improve clarity, coherence, consistency and correctness otherwise known as the "4 Cs", each of which serves the copy editor's "cardinal C", which is communication.