Copyediting, Proofreading, Line Editing... What's It All About?
Catherine Viel -- October 20, 2010
As a writer, you should be familiar with the various steps, including various editing services, that help turn a raw manuscript into something that will make publishers smile. Catherine Viel provides a guidebook to the mysteries of editing.
After you've done your best to perfect your work, there are still several different types of editing that your book could undergo. Knowing the differences between them will help clear up any confusion about editing jargon. And you'll be better able to judge what kind of editing your manuscript could benefit from.
Copyediting terminology is riddled with contradictions. The same type of editing may be called by different names not only by different people, but by the same person at different times. Toss in proofreading as a term that, quite frankly, is sorely abused by all of us, and you wind up with a messy verbal stew. This article, though by no means exhaustive, provides an overview of editing types and processes.
The Bay Area Editors' Forum (BAEF) website states, "Publishing embraces such a variety of ever-changing processes, companies, and products that it is little wonder the field suffers from an ambiguous lexicon. What medium editing means to a university press might be what a publisher of home repair books calls editorial proofreading." To further complicate things, not every editor does every type of editing. If you're hiring a freelancer, the most common services offered are copyediting and proofreading, followed by the more involved and time-consuming content editing, developmental editing, and ghostwriting.
Here's my breakdown of types of editing and their AKAs.
Copyediting. Sometimes called mechanical editing, copyediting can be performed at a light, medium, or heavy level, each of which has its own parameters. A misconception authors sometimes have is that copyediting is merely checking for typos, and they are puzzled at the amount of time needed (and cost incurred) for editing their book. The copyediting profession is not something most authors are familiar with, even though we know how to edit our own work or help a fellow author proof theirs. I had only the vaguest notion of what copyediting actually entailed before I became trained as a copyeditor and took university courses to become certified.
The BAEF notes, "One term that causes particular problems is light edit. Many assume that a lightly marked manuscript always reflects light editing. It may be so, but in fact many editorial tasks usually performed as part of a heavy edit leave no trace on the manuscript page," such as checking cross-references and creating a detailed style sheet. When I perform a heavy edit, the process includes everything done for a light or medium edit. A heavy-level copyedit can verge on content editing and include considerable rewriting.
The terms content editing, line editing, and substantive editing are often used interchangeably. I've noticed that fiction writers in particular tend to refer to content editing as having a line edit done—presumably because the manuscript is reviewed and revised line by line. Content editing often includes copyediting, though not always. If you contract for a content edit and also expect your manuscript to receive the full range of copyediting processes, make sure that's spelled out.
What exactly does copyediting involve? The Chicago Manual of Style describes mechanical editing as the process of ensuring "consistency in capitalization, spelling, hyphenation, table format, use of abbreviations, and so forth; correctness of punctuation, including ellipsis points, parentheses, and quotation marks; the way numbers are treated; consistency between text, tables, and illustrations; citation format; and other matters of style. Mechanical editing also includes attention to grammar, syntax, and usage." In other words, it covers a lot. The different levels (light, medium, heavy) come into play based on business or editorial decisions, the author's overall proficiency, and the manuscript in question. (If you are wondering why all this sounds like we're talking about nonfiction rather than fiction, it's because Chicago, often referred to as the book industry's bible, is primarily a very large style guide for nonfiction works. However, its precepts and guidelines generally apply to fiction, too. Generally, but not always. Fiction editing deserves its own article—I won't get into it here.)
Developmental editing is a different animal altogether, as it refers to restructuring or even rethinking an entire work. Per Chicago, developmental editing "addresses more radically the content of a work, the way material should be presented, the need for more or less documentation and how it should be handled, and so on. Since editing of this kind may involve total rewriting or reorganization of a work, it should be done—if needed—before manuscript editing begins." Developmental editing is the natural province of editors who have considerable experience and a track record with numerous successful projects. These editors may be harder to find than copyeditors as it's a more specialized area.
Developmental editing can verge on (or some say, be synonymous with) ghostwriting, which covers a range of services from very heavy editing or rewriting of existing text to writing from scratch for publication under someone else's name or aegis. Ghosts may or may not be given a shared byline with the author. Ghostwriters may not be editors at all, and in fact, a ghostwritten book will need copyediting just like any other manuscript.
Proofreading should have a straightforward meaning in the authoring and publishing industries, but alas, it does not. Of course an editor proofreads a manuscript as part of the editing process, but once the document goes to the publisher/printer, another set of guidelines comes into play. A proofreader endeavors to make sure that the final product (a) includes everything it's supposed to have and (b) doesn't include anything it's not supposed to have. Proofreading is the last chance to catch errors before your book is published and in part involves comparing proofs for accuracy against your original manuscript. Proofreaders follow an extensive checklist (or they should); proofing should be done on hardcopy, though increasingly proofreaders are asked to proof onscreen, usually on a .pdf. There's even a new term for it: softproofing. I am old school on this subject and, unless deadlines make online proofing mandatory, always work with print copies when proofreading books. This is another difference between proofreading and copyediting, which is nearly always done in Word using Track Changes to automatically redline and strikeout changes and record comments and queries.
Freelance editors are often contacted by authors wanting their book proofread before submitting to an agent or publisher, but what is usually needed is copyediting—perhaps light, but still copyediting. Grammar, style, and usage concerns need to be addressed for any manuscript, no matter how well-written, and a style sheet needs to be generated, things which don't happen during proofreading.
Once you've decided to hire a freelance editing professional, terminology isn't the most important thing. The important thing is to make sure that your editor's understanding of what is to be accomplished meets with your understanding. To again quote the BAEF's website, "The potential for confusing terminology and misapprehension notwithstanding, the crucial necessity is that both client and editor understand the client's instructions in the same way."
I provide a detailed description of editing services to my authors and may work on a few pages of the manuscript for their review before plunging in and editing the entire book. A phone conversation at the beginning of the process, and at intervals during editing, can head off potential misunderstandings before they have a chance to escalate.
In this brief article I haven't touched on other editorial positions such as acquisitions editor, production editor, or project editor. For more information, see the Bay Area Editors' Forum editorial services guide: http://www.editorsforum.org/what_do_sub_pages/definitions.php. Got editing questions? Contact me at writecat@cox.net or www.writecat.com.