Copyediting Service

A close-up of the pink flowers of an African violet plant. Two of the flowers are healthy. A third flower is old and withering.

Copyediting tends your draft as it nears harvest,
deadheading any errors
so that it can bloom freely.

A tomato plant with a new offshoot and small leaf growing from the center of a Y-shaped branch.

Scope of the Service

This service provides the following, as appropriate for your manuscript:

  • Formatting it in standard manuscript formatting

  • Identifying continuity concerns

  • Flagging redundancies and word echoes (where two similar-sounding words occur in close proximity)

  • Ensuring stylistic consistency and applying standard grammar, punctuation, and spelling guidelines

  • Fact-checking historical dates and events, potential anachronisms, basic principles of science and mathematics, and spellings of proper nouns (personal, place, and brand names)

  • Adhering to an existing style sheet, if present, or creating a new style sheet that collects your specific style preferences, manuscript-specific terminology, character descriptions, timeline, and setting-related details

A Y-shaped branch of a tomato plant. An hand is holding an offshoot which has just been plucked from the center of the Y.

Stages of the Service

1. Full editorial round

During this round, I’ll use Word’s comment feature and tracked changes to make or suggest appropriate revisions. I’ll also add notes to your existing style sheet (if present) or create a new style sheet for your manuscript.

Unless you wish otherwise, I’ll explain my grammatical edits using comments. I’ll leave these comments on the first instance of a particular category of edit, so it’s likely that there will be many such comments toward the beginning of the manuscript and few toward the end.

2. Author review round

During this round, you’ll be able to respond to questions posed during the editorial round and make adjustments as needed. If you would like, I offer one hour of video, voice, or email support after you receive your marked-up manuscript, editorial report, and style sheet.

3. Reconciliation round

During this round, I’ll make any further edits necessary (for instance, correcting typos in material you’ve added or revised) and remove all comments and tracked changes. I’ll return this clean manuscript to you so that you’re ready for your next step.