Projects work out best when I’m on the same page as you—literally and figuratively. You want to make sure you make the right investment, both of time and money, and I want to make sure you’re thrilled with the end result.
That’s why I’ve provided a menu of services to help educate and empower your decision-making as you move forward with your project. We don’t need to waste time on a copyedit if what you really need is a proofread. Or, perhaps a more in-depth edit than copyediting would suit your needs.
Let me meet you where you are, providing the tools and knowledge to ensure the final product is something you can be proud to share.
Copyediting
Think of this as the technical, nitty gritty review. Your project is basically done, but you want to make sure it’s done well. The goal of a copyedit is to prepare your content for a proofreader, or perhaps to immediately present it upon completion.
A copyedit includes a review of:
Grammar, punctuation, and spelling (or other typos)
Verb tense coherency and subject–verb agreement
Sentence structure and word choice
Adherence to relevant style guide, when applicable
Continuity and coherence on a granular level
Minor fact checking when warranted
A Copyedit will not include:
Rewriting anything longer than a sentence
Restructuring or reorganization of paragraphs or longer sections
Commentary regarding structural coherency across the body of the work.
Proofreading
You’re ready to present your project, but you’d feel so much better if someone else took one final look through everything.
A proofread should be your final step before formally finalizing a project and is usually done in Adobe as a PDF.
Proofreads differ from copyedits in that errors are marked, but not corrected.
A proofread includes a review for:
Typos, misspellings, incorrect word usage
Capitalization, punctuation, and subject–verb agreement
Formatting consistency
Adherence to relevant style guide, when applicable
Bad line breaks (nobody wants anal-yses or ass-es!)
Developmental Editing*
The goal of a developmental edit is to help bring your piece into its full potential, smoothing out the rough edges and allowing the golden nuggets you’ve already placed to be threaded together into a masterpiece.
This is a review for overarching themes, coherency, and flow and looks at the work from a higher level. Some things that may be covered include:
Consistency/flow (does the story make sense in this order?)
Repetitive/irrelevant material (does anything need to be removed?)
Missing content (identifying places that would benefit from further elaboration)
Transitions between paragraphs, ideas, or chapters
Narrative arc
Character arc/agency
Pacing
*This level of editing should be done before a copyedit or line edit!