If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin
Good copyediting is invisible to readers but promotes
their confidence in writers as competent, knowledgeable
authorities on the subject at hand.
Copyediting includes proofreading, which corrects basic
sentence-level errors such as spelling, grammar, syntax,
usage, and punctuation.
Copyediting goes beyond proofreading to correct complex
paragraph-level errors such as parallel structure,
appropriate word choice and sentence structure, and
consistent tone and style.
Careful copyediting ensures that the intended meaning is
conveyed. How an author makes a point assures readers
that writers know their subject.
Conscientious copyediting respects readers’ intelligence
and writers’ reputations.
The following examples show all five aspects of
competent copyediting.
Original |
Revised |
This would be an unacceptable disturbance to America’s
most hallowed war grave, especially among the 289
sailors who miraculously survived the inferno and
their descendents.
|
This would be an unacceptable
disturbance to America’s most hallowed war grave,
especially among the 289 sailors who miraculously
survived the inferno, and also for their descendents.
|
The best
way to describe the scene is similar to heat waves
that rise off of hot pavement as divers pass through
the boundary into a warmer layer of saltwater.
|
The best way to describe the scene when divers pass
through the boundary into a warmer layer of saltwater
is to think of the heat waves that arise from hot
pavement.
|
Gm trailed Nissan by 1 point, statistically
insignificant, last May
|
GM trailed Nissan by a statistically insignificant one
point last May.
|