The Short Story
Different kinds of editing focus on different aspects of writing. In general, it’s most efficient to edit from the big picture to the nitty gritty. Sometimes, though, a manuscript needs preliminary clean-up of formatting or mechanics to allow an editor to focus on big-picture concerns with the story, content, structure, or writing style.
The Real(ist) Story
Common editing services offered include developmental editing, substantive editing, line editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Different writers, editors, and publishers commonly use the same term to mean somewhat different things, so make sure you clear up definitions prior to hiring an editor or accepting an editing job. (Long ago, a one-off client docked me because he thought formatting should address style elements like bolding and italics.)
Substantial overlap exists among some of those editing categories, especially developmental and substantive editing, line editing and copyediting, and copyediting and proofreading. Any lengthy piece of writing probably needs more than one of those five kinds of editing, and some redundancy of editing tasks is helpful. That said, you’re more likely to need three of those types than all five as separate rounds of work.
Often, it’s best to have different editors perform different kinds of editing. During my decade-and-counting in the industry, I’ve discovered that most editors are not equally good at every type of task. For instance, we vary widely in our grasp of the mechanical intricacies of writing, like grammar. Alas, many an editor advertises copyediting or proofreading services—in good faith, mind you—but relies on an intuitive or superficial understanding of mechanics that’s more limited than the editor realizes.
I find that many such folks are excellent developmental or substantive editors, and they’re sometimes adequate copyeditors. But proofreaders, though only human, require something relatively close to perfection to be exceptional at their job (and worth the cost of their time). If a proofreader averages more than one clear-cut error or inconsistency per five thousand words, I reckon I’d be better off self-proofreading. For someone else’s manuscript, I’d raise that bar to one oversight allowed per ten thousand words. The realistic standard depends on your time, budget, and skill, and on expectations for the piece of writing in question.
Here is a quick taxonomy of editing:
Developmental editing focuses on big-picture aspects like content selection and structure, story elements, and general or pervasive aspects of phrasing and style. You may get a lot of comments as opposed to direct edits. In some cases, developmental editing may involve adding (“developing”) new content in some spots, though I would contend that crosses from editing into ghostwriting. Sometimes, structural editing is listed as a distinct type of editing.
Substantive editing is similar to developmental editing. It may be more likely than developmental editing to go line by line (like line editing) and dip into copyediting territory. At the very least, it goes beyond the big picture of story, content, and structure to look at general and pervasive issues with the writing style.
Copyediting—I make it one word, but two isn’t wrong. This is fine-tuning at the sentence level, including phrasing as well as mechanics (grammar, punctuation, and style). Line editing is sometimes used to mean copyediting.
Proofreading. A good copyeditor will preempt a lot of proofreading issues. But proofreading is the final search for outright mistakes. Ideally, the copyeditor and proofreader are two different people, despite the overlap in skill set. Sometimes, one person can do both jobs well for a given manuscript, but in separate passes; otherwise, it’s just copyediting.
Godspeed, and happy rewriting!
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Revised November 25, 2024.