A book can have multiple types of errors simultaneously. One chapter might be disorganized, a single sentence could be hard to follow, a character’s name might be misspelled in one place and spelled correctly in another, and there might be a misplaced comma somewhere toward the end. Attempting to address all of these issues in one go adds unnecessary complexity to the editing process. Understanding editing, copyediting, and proofreading as distinct stages of editing can help you clarify their functions.
The editorial pass focuses on broader elements within the manuscript. For example, depending on the nature of the work, you might need to assess structural issues, narrative sequence, redundancy, omitted background information, and incoherent transitions. Let’s say there’s a brief piece of nonfiction that mentions a certain concept throughout most of the body of the text but doesn’t define it until the concluding paragraph. No amount of fixing commas will fix this issue. You’ll first have to identify this problem and then determine how to resolve it. At this stage, adding comments or queries to the manuscript may be more effective than revising the text without input from the author.
Copyediting takes place at the sentence and paragraph level. This is where you’ll focus on the quality of writing, grammar, punctuation, word choice, usage, and stylistic consistency. A style sheet is helpful during this stage of editing. For instance, if the manuscript uses both the spellings of the word email on different pages, you can choose which spelling to use and note it on the style sheet for future reference. This technique works just as well for names, acronyms, dates, and similar conventions. Using Track Changes or a similar tool can also be a good way to highlight your edits without leaving them hidden in a revised version of the document.
Proofreading happens after the other stages of editing have been completed, at which point major editorial choices should already be made. There’s no need to go back and improve all the sentences once more. Rather, you’ll be scanning the manuscript for mistakes that were left behind or added during revisions, typesetting, and formatting. These might include missing words, misused punctuation, a section title that’s been cut off, a poor line break, a figure caption that’s been aligned next to the wrong illustration, or a reference to a page number that doesn’t correspond with an existing page. Going back to discuss broad issues at this stage may result in last-minute reworking of the document that could potentially introduce new errors.
Try taking a sample manuscript and applying the above three steps to the same portion of text (two or three pages will do). As you read through the text the first time, note any issues related to the organization or comprehension. On the second pass, focus on the mechanics of the writing, keeping track of any specific editing rules on a style sheet. After you’ve created a fresh version of the manuscript, proofread it without reevaluating the previous changes. Compare your notes from the different stages of the process and observe how the results differ. It may be surprising how much easier it is to identify certain kinds of errors when you’re focusing on one type of edit.
There’s a common misconception among novice editors that they should be correcting every error they see immediately. However, this practice can make it more difficult to distinguish between significant and trivial edits, and it can complicate the versioning process. Mixing major revisions, minor edits, and final proofreading changes together in one document version can lead to confusion. A structured editing approach allows you to treat different types of edits separately. When you encounter a mistake in a manuscript, pause before making changes and consider what type of editing you’re performing. If you can’t determine which stage of editing fits the mistake, leave a comment for yourself and wait to address it in the appropriate stage of editing.
This distinction is particularly relevant toward the end of the publishing process. By the time you reach page proofs, the overall shape and content of the document should be finalized. This is the point where you can shift your focus toward finer points like section titles, figure legends, bibliography entries, margins, breaks, and any remaining typographical mistakes. An indicator that you’re moving toward a more rigorous editing process isn’t that you make more changes; it’s that you can identify which stage of editing you’re working on when you make those changes.
