Gerry
Dean
Editorial
Understanding the Levels of Copyediting
By Darina Mayfield
Copyediting is an important part of the manuscript or document publishing process that should not be overlooked. Copyeditors act as the author’s second pair of eyes—responsible for checking consistency, style, and mechanics in accordance with a specific style guide like The Chicago Manual of Style and or an organization's house style.
The copyeditor wants to correct the manuscript or document, but with as little disruption as is necessary. There are three levels of copyediting: light, medium, and heavy. Typically, light copyediting focuses on typos and misspelling and issues of grammar, whereas medium and heavy copyediting ask more questions or queries. Heavy copyediting is more similar in scope to line editing.
Here is an example of a what a heavy copyedit may entail:
Mechanical editing: Correcting errors in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, hyphenation, abbreviations.
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Language editing: Correcting indisputable errors in grammar, syntax, usage. Querying terms likely to be new to readers and supplying definitions if able. Additionally, revising awkward, wordy passages.
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Content editing: Verifying with standard references. Additionally, revising factual inconsistencies or suspected errors. Querying and or fixing faulty organization and gaps in logic.
Copyeditors are also responsible for putting together a project style sheet. A project style sheet helps the copyeditor remember style choices they make and notes those choices for others who may work on the manuscript or document after them, such as proofreaders. Project style sheets typically place style choices under the following headings:
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Punctuation
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Numbers
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Abbreviations
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Capitalization
Gerry Dean Editorial offers copyediting services. Contact us today to learn more.