What a Copyeditor Does
In her own words, our member Barbra Rodriguez explains the distinction between content editor and copyeditors.
Noting that there may be no difference at all depending on how an editor or client defines the term (it’s possible copyediting is seen as being more minimal because of the way it’s used at newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News, where I interned, but it does vary in focus).
Copyediting can just focus on a one-and-done approach of getting a text as clean as possible without altering the writing style and such. Fact checking may or may not be involved (often, it is).
Because copyediting often applies to longer documents in my world, cost becomes a major factor, and copy editors frequently offer a light, medium, or heavy copyedit. My approach to those is informed by the copyediting certificate program I completed through UC, San Diego. A style guide will often be referred to as part of this process, or will be developed by the copy editor for a long-term project, such as the ones I’ve developed for a three-part memoir series, and for a 130-plus page newsletter of a college.
A light copyedit typically focuses on addressing mechanical errors (in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation, and abbreviations), correcting grammatical errors, flagging factual inconsistencies between different sections of text, and ensuring consistent text treatment. At the light level, a copy editor won’t focus as much on trying to improve readability, but rather on correctness and consistency.
A medium copyedit will add in some focus on improving wording and word choices to ensure clarity and cohesion; the editor will likely address unusually awkward stretches of text to make the copy more compelling, and will call out faulty organization or logic gaps, but often leaves it to the author to address anything that isn’t an obvious error. A heavy copyedit is more like having a second writer come in and rework text line by line, and can involve moving a few sentences around a bit, as well as updating incorrect facts after looking at resources, etc. (any changes in a medium or heavy edit that could affect meaning will be called out to the author for consideration).
When major rearranging of content occurs and the author needs guidance on overarching decisions, that is considered developmental editing. Somewhere in between a heavy copyedit and a developmental edit is where the traditional book publishing world uses the term “content edit” (i.e. it’s a heavy revision).
Some copy editors also provide proofreading, which focuses on catching any remaining errors in formatted text, image captions, and wayfinding content such as headlines right before a book or other manuscript is printed.
Regardless of the copyediting approach, there will often be nuanced choices related to UX. For instance, the phrase “grassy knoll” has become so associated with the assassination of JFK that, if a copy editor saw that phrase in a passage not meant to relate to that event, they might flag the author to consider changing the wording.