In the online syllabus for a writing course at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Dr. Barbara L’Eplattenier describes copy editors as:
…anal-retentive, obsessive compulsive, half-blind, grammar-obsessed people … surrounded by stacks of paper.
If you cannot see yourself in that picture, you might expect this aspect of copy editing — checking your work for grammar, formatting, and consistency — to be a lot like pulling your own teeth — difficult, painful, and worth doing only in extreme circumstances. But you would be wrong.
Here are four tips to make copy editing easier and less painful.
- Start with a style guide.
A style guide is “a publication which specifies details of writing style required by a particular publishing house or professional organization, including such matters as punctuation, capitalization, and rules for citing references.” For consistency’s sake, don’t even try to copy edit your document until you’ve settled on, or been directed to, an authoritative standard. Here’s a short list of style guides to choose from: http://www.libraryspot.com/grammarstyle.htm - Develop a categorized checklist.
It’s usually a good idea to start with a generic checklist and add specifics that address personally areas of grammar and consistency or issues that are specific to a certain job. - For long documents, work on one section at a time and make several passes on each section, checking one thing at a time.
I lifted this tip from Dr. L’Eplattenier:1. Print off your document.
2. Decide ONE thing that you need to check for. Look for it. Note changes.
3. Decide ANOTHER thing that you need to check for. Look for it. Note changes.
4. Decide ANOTHER thing that you need to check for. Look for it. Note changes.
Making sure everything looks the same, is grammatically correct, and includes all the correct info is easiest when you pick one thing to look for and fix. Your brain can’t remember all of that stuff to look for. So don’t look for a ton of things at the same time.
Other articles in this series:
- How to Make Your Own Dogfood Palatable
- Make It Coherent: Tips for documents that are structurally and logically coherent.
- Make It Clear: Tips for adjusting your document’s vocabulary and sentence structure to be easily understood and appropriate for the intended audience.
- Make It Compelling: How to make your document’s tone attractive and inviting.
