The answer to the question, “What is copyediting?” will differ slightly depending on who answers it. But all freelance editors will likely say that copyediting (or copy-editing) is a type of editing.
Copyediting means correcting a manuscript’s grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, and style and ensuring that the document follows the recommended style guide.
You should also know that in publishing jargon, the raw manuscript is the copy, so editing the manuscript is copy editing, or copyediting. Some people refer to copyediting as line editing or manuscript editing.
What does copyediting entail?
Copyediting comprises linguistic editing (language editing), stylistic editing, and mechanical editing. So, the following tasks are all part of copyediting:
- Correcting grammatical mistakes
- Correcting punctuation mistakes
- Fixing typos and spellings errors
- Correcting word usage errors
- Fixing or flagging biased language
- Improving writing style
- Basic fact-checking (spelling of names, accuracy of quotations and dates, etc.)
- Ensuring consistency of capitals, italics, bold font, hyphenation, numbering, etc.
- Cross-checking the text and additional material (illustrations, tables, appendices, glossary, bibliography, etc.)
- Ensuring the document follows the given style guide
At the same time, copyediting means checking the bigger picture: document completeness, layout, structure, and logic.
In conclusion, copyediting means checking and correcting a document so that it is “clear, consistent, correct and complete”, as CIEP says.
What copyediting is not
Copyediting does not include the following tasks:
- Content editing
- Reference formatting
- Rewriting
- Proofreading
- Checking for plagiarism
- Designing document layout
What is good copyediting?
Now that you know the answer to the question “What is copyediting?”, you should also know what high-quality copyediting means.
In short, good copyediting, or high-quality copyediting, means editing the copy without altering the author’s style. Or, as the authors of Butcher’s Copy-editing put it,
Good copy-editing is invisible: it aims to present the book the author would have written if he or she had more time or experience – not, as some new copy-editors think, their own improved version.
Do you need to hire a copyeditor? Send me a message at editor@languageediting.com.
Related posts:
- In short, what is proofreading?
- In short, what is editing?
- What is developmental editing in nonfiction?
Last revised on 6 August 2022
