Getting What You Want When Hiring an Editor
Skilful editing maintains the writer’s original voice while ensuring a correct, consistent and complete work that suits the intended audience and medium.
All editing requires certain fundamental skills such as attention to detail, critical thinking skills in order to be able to recognize inconsistencies and vagueness, tact and good interpersonal skills to be able to deal with writers, excellent communication skills, and the ability to sustain focus, especially when the text being edited is lengthy or complex.
It can help that an editor has familiarity with the subject being edited, but it is not always essential. In fact, there are times when it is advantageous not to be overly familiar with the subject matter, such as when editing a document authored by a technical writer that is intended for a more general audience.
Proofreading, Reviewing, Structural, Copy or Stylistic Editing…??!?
When hiring someone to edit or proofread, it’s important to understand the meaning behind the terms – particularly because so many different terms exist and that they are used indistinctly despite the fact that they involve different activities. Being familiar with what each process entails enables you to clarify your needs and obtain the services you require to attain the best possible product.
The definitions below are based on definitions from The Editors Association of Canada (www.editors.ca) who has begun to standardize definitions for the editing community.
Substantive Editing
Substantive editing can be thought of as the most intensive of the editing processes. Substantive editing may involve reorganising, revising, deleting, or expanding or adding material in a document. Examples include documents that need to be cut in size, materials that have more than one author and need the voices to be blended, documents that do not have good flow or are not easy to comprehend, and documents that require additions to fill gaps in content or strengthen transitions between sections.
Stylistic Editing
Stylistic editing involves editing to ensure that the meaning is clearly communicated, that paragraphs and transitions have good flow and that the document is appropriate for the intended audience and medium. Stylistic editing is less intensive than substantive editing; for example, stylistic editing may entail reordering the sentences within a paragraph to improve flow or meaning, but will not require reordering or reorganising of paragraphs or sections. Thus, stylistic editing will mostly focus on cleaning up sentences and ensuring terms and ideas are clearly communicated.
Copy Editing
While you can think of stylistic editing as editing everything from the level within the paragraph and down, copy editing mostly involves everything from the sentence structure and down. Thus, copy editing looks at grammar and punctuation within the sentence, ensures that terms and styles are consistently used, and that names, numbers and headings are accurate or identifies the need for them to be checked.
Proofreading
Proofreading involves checking a document for typographical or formatting errors and inconsistencies. More than one proofreading of a document may be required depending upon the complexity of the material and the amount of editing that has been required. The first proofread examines the document word by word, while subsequent reviews focus on elements and layout.
Project Management (Also called Developmental or Project Editing)
Project management involves planning, organizing, securing, and managing people and resources to achieve the specific goals of a short-term endeavour. A project manager oversees the project as a whole – either taking a role in producing the deliverable or solely managing those who produce the deliverable. Generally in project editing, a project manager has a role in producing the product. For example, project editing may involve effectively incorporating input from authors, reviewers or consultants and ensuring the viability of the final document.