What to Look For: The Copyediting Checklist

Does your writing sound and feel muddled to you? Do certain sentences sound unclear in retrospect? Maybe a statement feels too nonspecific. If that’s the case, we need to do some copyediting.

Copyediting is not proofreading.

While this is a common misconception, proofreading is focused mostly on grammar and mechanics. Some proofreading can cross over to a line edit or a copyedit, but proofreading alone maketh not a copyedit. 

Think of a copyedit in three C’s: Clear, Concise, and Consistent. 

When your writing is clear, your word choice, sentence structure, and overall organization contributes meaning to your message. 

Concise writing, to a lot of people, might mean delivering your message in as few words as possible. That’s yet another myth. Concise writing is all about, yes, removing filler words and phrases that aren’t serving your writing. However, it’s also about prioritizing what is essential. 

It’s okay to shock your readers through your style of writing, but it should be consistent with something. Writers will use their writing style just as much as the words themselves to convey their stories, a moral, an argument, anything at all. Many narratives make stylistic shifts within their stories, most often when they’re changing perspectives, but they’re consistent with the story and have clear reasoning.

In your editing, here are some ways in which we evaluate for the three C’s. Try them on your work!

Clarity

• Jargon: Everything has its own language. If your aim is to help people understand an occupation, a particular group, or an abstract concept, people who are outside those groups will probably not understand the language inside those groups in the same way. When you define jargon, as a writer, you acknowledge that.
  

• Pacing: It’s easy to skip over language that feels confusing. Sometimes, a word or phrase doesn’t feel natural to say. When we edit for pacing, we take into account that readers feel a certain rhythm as they go through a text. When we’re able to follow a reader’s rhythm, the text will be easier to understand.
  

• Active Voice: We’ve addressed this one so much because it matters. There is value in both passive and active voice. The trick is knowing when to use it. Sometimes, what sounds the most natural is the passive voice, especially in professional writing. At other times, the more direct, subject-focused writing will be the most impactful. Make thoughtful choices.
  

  Conciseness

  
  

• Redundancy: There’s a difference between repetition that achieves a desired effect and repetition for the sake of repetition. If you want to convey a message that requires a great deal of context, research, and multiple moving parts, adding value to your language means removing what’s unnecessary and repetitive.
  

• Wordiness: I talk about this with my students consistently. Sometimes, writers use a paragraph for an idea that only needs a sentence or two at most. Others will use a sentence or two for an idea that needs a paragraph. This boils down to thoughtful choices. Begin with your instinct as a writer, then go back through what you’ve written. Does each word add substance to your writing goals? What do you need [or need to get rid of] to meet those goals?

  Consistency
  

• Tone: Does the tone of your writing match its purpose? If not, is there a reason why you chose the tone you did? Command Your Code: Remember when we talked about jargon? Everything has its language. When you’re writing a short story, you’re thinking of language in a completely different way than you would if you were writing a professional email. There will be some noticeable tells that you are the writer, but a successful command of code ensures that the tone you use meets the situation you’re in as a writer.
  

• Formatting: People turn to professional book formatters for a reason. When self-publishing, as an example, authors take care to make sure their work is in KDP format. When submitting any written piece, take note of any formatting expectations or general guidelines. Readers will know what they should expect. So should you.
  

• Grammar and Punctuation: This is where copyediting can fold over into proofreading. A copyeditor will use the most appropriate style guide for what they’re working on (see my piece on style guides for more information), and make sure that your piece makes sense within those guidelines. There’s a difference between a decent draft and Purposeful Prose, and I would love to meet you! Contact us for a free consultation and a free sample edit!