Sally is a member of IPED – the Institute of Professional Editors. IPED exists as a source of events and workshops for editors to keep them up to date with editing knowledge, and to encourage networking with other editors.
What is involved in editing?
Editing is the process of checking, cutting, condensing and changing a text – any language improvements that your work might need to make it ready for publication. We can do this on a large scale, affecting the structure or whole ‘flavour’ of a text. We might suggest, as well as corrections, changes to the overall tone or voice of a piece of writing. This can make a document more readable or more suitable for the intended audience. Another thing we can do is edit a document so it is written in plain English – again, improving readability. All these types of changes come under the term structural or substantive editing.
We can also make edits on a smaller scale, or copy-editing. Here we look at finer detail, searching for grammatical errors or problems in sentence structure. And there is always the spelling…
What do you need to start an editing job?
If you have a document that needs editing, either substantive or copy-editing, please contact us to discuss the work. I will first read a sample – a few pages and a look at the structure of the whole should be enough. This will tell me how much work is involved in editing the text. I will then know how long the edit will take and how much it will cost.
If you decide to go ahead, I will almost always edit the document on screen in Word. This way I can return to you a copy that only needs the track changes accepted, provided you agree with my changes. Normally I will have inserted comments throughout the document so you can understand the reasons for the changes. Sometimes I use these comments to suggest changes without actually making them. If you can only provide me with pdfs, this is OK too. I do, however, need to add my changes as ‘sticky notes’. This takes a little longer and does not provide changes in a form that you can instantly accept.
A word from a happy client…
Sally has edited health care advice publications for us for ACI (NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation). She provides high quality and succinct proofreading and editing services and can be relied upon for flexibility. A great pleasure to work with professionally and personally.
Conor Ragg, Editorial Coordinator, Ragg & Co.