What are the different levels of copyediting?

Copyeditors could linger over each line and paragraph in a document until they were pleased with its clarity, coherence, consistency, and correctness—even its beauty and elegance—if time and money were not a problem. However, because time and money are always constraints, many book and corporate publishers use light, medium, or heavy phrases to help copyeditors focus and prioritize their work.

The level of Manuscript copyediting a publisher requests for a given project depends on several factors, including the following:

• The calibre of the author’s writing
• The target market; 
• The timeline and budget for editing and publication;
• The author’s reputation, attitude toward editing, and availability;
• The size of the final print run;
• And the significance of the publication to the publisher.

In a perfect world, judgments on the amount of copyediting would only be made after considering the writing’s caliber and the demands of the target audience. Thoughts like “This manuscript is poorly written, but our budget only allows for light copyediting” or “This manuscript would benefit from a heavier hand, but the author has many pressing commitments and won’t have time to read through a heavily edited manuscript” frequently prevail due to budgetary constraints and deadline pressures.

There are no standard definitions for light, medium, and severe copyediting, but if you adhere to the recommendations, you won’t stray too far from the mark. You may even show your editorial coordinator these criteria and ask which ones best reflect their expectations for your work.

Additionally, before commencing copyediting, you should inquire about the following topics.

Audience

• Who is the text’s primary readership?
• How much background knowledge is assumed of the readers?
• What purpose will readers have for the publication? Will it be reading for leisure or work? Is it a reference manual or a read it once and put it aside document? Will most readers skim the article, or will they sometimes refer back to different parts?

Text

• How much text is there?
• What kind of physical part is the text?

For editing on paper:
It’s double-spaced. (Copying-editing single-spaced text might be challenging unless only a few commas are needed.) On how many words does a page arc? How well does the typeface read? All four margins must be at least one inch wide.

Par on-sweat editing:
What word processing program did the author use? For example, has the publisher converted the author’s files into another program or format? How will the journal copyedited manuscript be processed?

For hard-copy editing:
Will the entire document be re-keyed, or will the modifications be entered? (If the latter, the copyeditor must mark up any changes with a brightly coloured pencil or pen so that the inputter may see them straight away.)

For on-snap editing:
Is the copyeditor need to provide dean files, which include the copyedited text, or redlined files, which show insertions and deletions? Is the copyeditor required to code elements or unique characters (such as diacritical markings on letters and foreign alphabets)?

• Does the manuscript include anything except plain text, such as tables, footnotes or endnotes, a bibliography, photographs, or graphs? How many of each type?
• Are all works of art available as readable copies? 

Type of editing

• Which type of medical manuscript copyediting—light, medium, or heavy—is being asked for?
• Is there any scheduling or financial restrictions behind that request?
• Has the requester read the whole text or only a portion of it? How much money or hours are allotted for the copyediting?
• Does the copyeditor have to make significant text cuts?
• Is it expected that the copyeditor will verify the math in the tables? To examine bibliographical references? Exist any significant design restrictions or preferences that place restrictions on the amount of art, table size, or several heading levels? Using unique characters (foreign alphabets, mathematical symbols, musical notation)? Endnotes or footnotes?
• Are all works of art available as readable copies?

Editorial style

• What type of manual does the pack prefer? The dictionary of choice?
• Does a style manual, cheat sheet or list of editorial preferences exist inside the company?
• Should I read any prior editions or similar literature first? Is this work a part of a more extensive series?

Author

• Who wrote this? Is the author new or seasoned?
• The author has seen a sample edit, right?
• Has the author been informed of the editing type (or degree)? 

Administrative details

• Whom should the copyeditor address any inquiries that come up while editing?
• What time frame must the language editing be finished? How firm is it?