Types of Editing

Substantive Editing

Substantive editing is sometimes known as developmental editing, structural editing, or content editing. Whatever it’s called, this kind of editing identifies problems with the flow of ideas; the logic of the arguments; the overall organization and consistency of the paragraphs, sections, chapters, and headings; and the content of the writing. A developmental editor can help you plan and shape your project before you even begin writing. This type of editor might also help you make major cuts to an article, chapter, or book to fit a publication’s length requirements or to get rid of unnecessary, distracting material. A content editor will consider the actual subject matter of the writing—for example, how you have used sources, defined terms, integrated quotations into your argument, or analyzed other literature in the field.

Line Editing

Line editing is more focused on the actual writing at the sentence and paragraph level. Line editors address problems such as choppy sentences, passive constructions, weak or nonexistent topic sentences, repetition and wordiness, faulty parallelism, awkward or imprecise word choice, ambiguous pronouns, misplaced modifiers, missing transitions, and all those other writing and grammar problems you learned about in school but perhaps haven’t mastered. Like substantive editors, line editors also point out holes in logic and flow, but more on the sentence and paragraph level. The kind of line editing that I do often involves intensive revision to clarify and strengthen the writer’s meaning—particularly for writers whose first language is not English. Some editors categorize this intensive type of line editing as substantive editing.

Copyediting

Line editing and copyediting lie on a continuum. They focus on many of the same concerns (and the terms are often used interchangeably), but copyediting is somewhat less intensive than line editing. Although copy editors fix awkward or unclear sentences, they focus on grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, compound style, number style, abbreviation style, and other issues of stylistic consistency rather than on more extensive revisions to improve the writing. A copy editor also makes sure that your text conforms to the specific style and formatting guidelines of your publisher, journal, institution, or department.

Citation Editing

Citation editing is an aspect of copyediting but can also go well beyond it. Whether you’re using footnotes, endnotes, or in-text citations, you may need an editor to check them for accuracy and style conformity (even if you’re using a citation generator). An editor can make sure that you’ve included all the required source information, that it’s accurate, and that you’ve used the short form correctly after citing the full source the first time. An editor can verify that all the sources you’ve cited in the text are included in your bibliography (Chicago), reference list (APA), or works cited list (MLA)—and conversely, that all the sources in that list are cited in the text. Legal and medical references require particularly careful editing. If you’re a scholar in a field that tends to have long, discursive notes with lots of additional sources, an editor can be essential. I’ve found that some authors also need an editor to check their quotes for accuracy.

Proofreading

Like line editing and copyediting, copyediting and proofreading lie on a continuum—but proofreading occurs later in the process and focuses more narrowly on fixing outright mistakes. Proofreaders correct typos, missing or repeated words, punctuation and spelling errors, and egregious grammar problems. Depending on the project, the proofreader may also correct style inconsistencies that the copy editor missed and may even revise awkward sentences—but the proofreader should not be making major revisions or simply changing the copy editor’s style decisions. Proofreaders also check page and footnote cross-references, headings, typographical elements, and layout issues (such as bad line or page breaks).

Formatting

Formatting a manuscript might involve combining separate chapter files into a single book file and making sure that the text is consistent throughout; dividing a large file into separate chapter files; styling headings using Word Styles; using those headings to create an automatic Word table of contents; updating the table of contents as needed; creating a table of figures; using Word styles to create consistent text elements (body text, different levels of headings; captions, block quotes, epigraphs, bibliography, etc.); adding section breaks; adding headers or footers and correctly styled page numbers for different chapters or sections or for odd and even pages; resizing images to avoid pagination problems; getting rid of extra spaces, tabs, hard returns, and page breaks; formatting footnotes or endnotes; and changing the paragraph indent style. Sometimes formatting can involve playing around with the kerning of a font (condensing or expanding it) to avoid loose justified lines. I can format and design a manuscript to look like a book and be almost ready for publication.

Production Editing

Like so many aspects of the editorial process, production editing can mean different things in different publishing contexts. I’m using the term to refer to the process of reviewing PDFs (created from an InDesign file), using Acrobat markup tools to make proofreading and other changes (or going over the proofreader’s corrections). Production editing can also involve collating revisions from authors and other readers, as well as working with the designer. The production editor then verifies that all those changes have been executed correctly. In an art publication, production editing encompasses checking images, captions, and credit lines.

I do all these different types of editing. Let’s discuss how I can help you with your project.