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COPYEDITING
We agree, it’s rather odd that copyediting, the verb, is one solid word while copy editor, the person who performs this critical task is two words—but that’s how it is. The fact that we know this is just one of the things that makes us qualified to apply our touch to your written projects, whether in print or on the Web. People’s reliance on spell checker has become so prevalent that there’s a kind of laziness that has developed, making it possible for all kinds of errors to slip through. Remember that a spell checker will allow any word get through if it is, in fact, an actual word in its dictionary. Know, too, that some of the words and even the grammar built into grammar checkers are antiquated in style or usage, and we’re here to help ensure your message will get through clearly and effectively.
How Do We Do It?
As we do virtually all of our work for our clients remotely via e-mail, we’re set up to copyedit your work in Microsoft Word®—which we consider to be the best way as we can create a version of the revised document for you where you can see every change as well as any open queries we have for you PLUS one that accepts all of our fixes with only the open, clearly highlighted queries for you to address. It’s simpler and less expensive if we can provide you with clean copy before your graphic designer or Web person has put something into layout. However, if the work comes to us as an editable PDF, we can edit that with text edits using Adobe® Acrobat® Professional, which can be viewed using Adobe’s free Reader®, if needed, for you to implement.
What Is Copyediting?
Copyediting entails a line-by-line examination of a document or manuscript for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and conformity to style. The language can be polished and the writer's meaning clarified, if needed. We treat the first review of existing material as copyediting, and later reviews of the same material with fixes applied as the ultimate safety net to be proofreading, billed at a lower rate as we want to encourage you to use us to review all of your written materials. It’s way too common for new, inadvertent errors to creep in when copy is modified by the client after someone has done the editing.
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