Copyediting
I offer different levels of editing to fit your budget and your goals. I will polish your writing. Feel stuck? Contact me. I can help.
Questions? I'd love to help.
Copyediting
A light copyedit (sometimes also called proofreading by authors) is an edit before publication without a lot of changes. This service requires a final document and uses the Track Changes feature of Word to indicate any suggested changes. Service includes checking punctuation, spelling, grammar, and usage and consistent formatting, but it does not include evaluating what is written. It just ensures what is written conforms to the right style and is grammatically correct.
A standard copyedit or line edit gives you all of the services of a light edit, plus identifying and suggesting resolutions for problems with clarity. It is popular with authors who are already comfortable with what is written, and it will catch easily resolved inconsistencies. Businesses often use this service for their Web sites, articles, brochures, white papers, and manuals to ensure their message is clear and their image is polished. You might see sentences reworked to remove passive voice, transitions smoothed out, or comments for items you need to evaluate further.
Sample Edits
Sample Line Edit
More Editing Samples
Are you stuck? Do you have questions about where your story should go? I offer three services to help.
Developmental editing is needed when what you’ve written needs to be reviewed from a wider perspective. I will make suggestions for the work's improvement, such as:
- Ensuring point of view is consistent
- Resolving inconsistencies
- Helping create properly developed and realistic characters
- Identifying and suggesting resolutions for problems with logic, organization, and presentation
- Evaluating relevance to audience
- Ensuring objectives (from you, your company, or your publisher) are met
- Identifying formatting and layout problems and suggesting ways to resolve them
- Flagging where permission may be needed to reprint something
- Ensuring concepts are adequately explained
This service is often used for book manuscripts, for example, prior to submission to a publisher or agent, and it will identify the things that publishers look for. Copyediting is a separate service after the developmental edit.
Editorial Report
An editorial report looks at your project as a whole. It will tell you what you've done right and where you could improve to reach your goals, regardless of whether you decide to proceed with editing.
For example, an editorial report will look at recurring grammatical errors and provide examples and explanations so you can go back and revise them. Another example is providing suggestions for ways to improve the characters or point of view in a fiction novel or the overall progression of ideas in a nonfiction document.
Coaching
Coaching is as flexible as you need it to be to help you meet your goals. It could be discussion about a problem you are struggling to resolve or a technique you want to apply. It could be a report that reveals the strengths and weaknesses of your work. Many writers prefer this when they're not ready to publish or just want direction about where to go next.