What is a copyedit, and how can it help you?

A copyedit can greatly benefit you and your writing – you may have heard of this being a particular editing stage when a book or piece of text is published, or it may be new to you. Let’s break down exactly what copyediting is, and how it can help you improve your writing and get it prepared for publishing.

The three editorial stages

To start with, it’s useful to know that there are three main stages to editing. Most published works go through all three. These stages are: structural editing (sometimes known as developmental or content editing), copyediting, and proofreading.

Structural editing or developmental editing focuses on the broader elements – the wider argument, how the text is structured and whether this could be done in a more effective way, addressing any huge gaps or holes in the material or content, and so on. There may be suggestions from the editor to do substantial rearranging, restructuring, or more major revisions.

Proofreading is the last stage – and the last chance to catch anything before a piece of work is published. It looks at all sorts of issues, from lingering textual errors to problems with layout and design.

In the publishing workflow, copyediting happens in-between these stages. So what exactly is a copyedit, and what can you expect if you decide to invest in one?

What is a copyedit?

A copyedit looks at the mechanical and technical aspects of the work, sentence by sentence. It’s the stage where the text is refined, polished, and smoothed, ensuring consistency and accuracy. It also involves some elements of preparing the work for layout and design.

Essentially, a copyedit is an edit that solves sentence-level problems and prepares the work for the next editorial stage.

So at a line level, a copyedit will look at errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and consistency (such as numbers or terminology changing), as well as light fact-checking (for instance, the wrong name of a road being used or referencing the wrong year) or flagging potential copyright issues.

Finer details will be checked over, too, from bibliographies and cross-references to illustrations, tables, and diagrams.

Copyediting also smooths out the flow of the writing to make it more readable. It can address unclear areas of meaning, vague or ambiguous sentences, repetition, or clunky language. This aspect of the edit can be light, medium, or fairly heavy, depending on the editorial needs of the author and the work.

In terms of preparing the text, a copyedit will involve applying an industry-standard style guide (such as The Chicago Manual of Style). This is something that is done for all published works, to ensure style, usage, and grammar are uniform and in line with publishing standards. Sometimes the business or publisher will have their own “in house” style guide to be followed.

During a copyedit of a book-length manuscript, the editor will also prepare a style sheet to keep track of their decisions, which can help to show the author why certain changes were made and can be passed on to a proofreader or typesetter.

Why do you need a copyedit?

A copyedit is carried out for almost every piece of professionally published writing. It’s an essential step – you don’t want the reader being distracted from your message and your words by a clunky sentence or poor grammar. Or worse, a huge factual error or copyright problem (for example, using a song lyric without having the right permissions).

Writers have usually become so close to their own work during the writing process that these things aren’t noticed or caught – a second pair of professional eyes is needed to make sure the writing is ready to be published.

A copyedit is also essential to prepare the work for publishing itself. It’s the copyeditor’s job to make sure the typesetter (the person working on the design and layout of the published piece, if it will be printed) understands all the different editorial elements and how they should be treated.

This can involve marking up headings and subheadings and unusual elements of the text (such as blockquotes), and making sure things like indentation and any breaks have been applied properly.

When to invest in copyediting

If you plan to publish your writing as an independent writer or a business, a copyedit is always a good idea. Your work will get the same editorial treatment as it would if you were working with a publishing house, meaning you will be in a better position to compete with other published works.

Publishers of books usually provide a copyedit for their authors – but it never hurts to have a copyeditor do a more tailored line-by-line edit for you on your sample chapters before you submit your proposal. The edit can be adjusted to focus only on smoothing the writing, concentrating on flow and clearness, rather than prepping for publication.