What is Copyediting?
Copyeditors don’t want to be seen as the Wicked Witch of the West, out to steal your manuscript (and your little dog, too!). We want to be seen as Glinda, where we guide the author and smooth out the rough edges.
Copyediting is about ensuring a document follows the Three C’s of Copyediting: that it is clear, concise, and correct. These three c’s are the cardinal rules that copyeditors follow. They also have a creed of “do no harm.” A copyeditor doesn’t want to hack up your work with a red scythe and critique you harsher than your 8th grade literature teacher.
A copyeditor’s voice should remain unheard—instead the focus is on elevating the author’s voice, removing any extra words or phrases, correcting any errors, and clarifying the author’s language so there is no ambiguity. The goal whenever working on a manuscript is to ensure the reader is able to become fully immersed in the manuscript so the action of reading is secondary to the experience of reading.
Copyeditors want to preserve the voice of the author while advocating for the reader. A similar parallel is an art restorer: when restoring art, the goal of the restoration is to remove any smudges, cracks, or damage to the artwork and make it appear that no one has done anything to the canvas since the original artist. You should never know the copyeditor was there between the author and the reader.
So What Other Kinds of Editing Are There?
Developmental Editing: When you think of an editor, you likely thing of a developmental editor. A developmental editor should join the team after the author is finished writing the manuscript. The developmental editor will work with the author to suggest any major changes that may be necessary, whether to the plot, structure, characterization, dialogue style, setting, or even genre. They identify and can assist in implementing large-scale improvements to manuscripts.
Line Editing: Line editing can often overlap with copyediting as they both look at fine details of a manuscript and correct errors. However, a line editor’s main focus is to rewrite the text to whatever extent is needed. They’re not necessary, but they can help with tightening dialogue, adjusting scene transitions, adjusting pacing, and correcting word issues like mixed metaphors.
Proofreading: Most people outside of the publishing industry hear “proofreading” and think of handing over your writing for someone to read through it and check your spelling, make sure it makes sense, and check on your grammar but this is actually copyediting. Proofreading is a separate cup of tea that involves knowing Unicode and looking through the proofs (images or prints of the pages after they’ve been edited but before they’ve gone to the printer) to verify typesetting, page numbers are accurate and match the Table of Contents, symbols are correct, and there are no orphan phrases on a page all alone. They also can review the text in electronic formats to ensure they’re well-produced and set up for eReaders or other electronic formats. A proofreader won’t actually do much editing to the text since the manuscript should be finalized before it gets to that point in the process as proofs are expensive to produce.
For additional information on different editing roles, you can check out this page at the EFA’s website.