Editing involves revising content, organization, grammar, and presentation. There are four main types and focuses:
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Developmental Editing: Examines overall structure and content flow, suggesting big changes to organization, language, style, and title.
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Structural Editing: Focuses on structure, occurring alongside developmental editing.
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Copy Editing: Checks grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word usage, while preserving meaning and voice. It imposes a consistent style and format and checks for clarity, inconsistencies, and reference accuracy.
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Proofreading: Focuses on catching grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. It is the final stage before publishing.
Quality Publishing
Quality publishing requires multiple editing rounds. Writers should read through completed pieces carefully to spot issues and work through editing types to rectify them.