Copyediting

You’ve written and revised your story, and your readers will be thrilled with the plot, character development, pacing, and overall message—all the big-picture stuff is solid. You’re ready for someone to go over the text on the paragraph, sentence, and word level to ensure consistency within the manuscript, adherence to a style guide to meet industry standards, and clarity for the reader. Time for copyediting!

In copyediting, I'll be looking for

  • Grammar, spelling, and punctuation

  • Consistency in content and style

  • Light fact-checking

I'll keep detailed style notes to capture anything that doesn't align with the style guide of your choice (Chicago Manual of Style is my specialty, but I can also work with APA and others).

We'll work together to determine the level of copyediting that your work needs and how much "touch" you want from my edits:

  • In a "light" edit, I would only fix items that absolutely have to be changed for grammatical purposes and query you on everything else.

  • In a "heavy" edit, I would make revisions for wordy or awkward passages, repetition, or other stylistic impediments. I would query any factual inaccuracies and inconsistencies, and make suggestions for anything else I see.