BY FARIDA MIRZA
CONTENT AND LINE EDITING AND PROOFREADING
As an English teacher correcting student essays, I was content editing, line editing and proofreading without being aware of the differences in the three processes. Equipped with a pen or pencil, I was suggesting, commenting, correcting and doing whatever was necessary to help the student’s writing reach its potential. My goal was to help the student say what he or she wanted to say in the most effective way possible.
It was later in life, when I took up editing as a job, that I realized I had to separate the skills I had been instinctively using into three sections: content editing, line editing and proofreading. Though there is some overlap, there are differences in what each of the three processes involves.
CONTENT (OR DEVELOPMENTAL) EDITING
A content editor picks up a manuscript and reads it in order to grasp the author’s vision, intention and voice. What follows is a series of exchanges, and back-and-forth edits between the author and the content editor. The author makes revisions as the content editor suggests and guides. A close relationship develops between the two.
The content editor gives comprehensive guidance and helps the author find his/her voice, improve plot credibility, develop characters by enhancing strengths and diminishing weaknesses, deal with rising peril issues, introduce or reinforce emotional content, cut down descriptions if there are too many that might bore the reader, add to descriptions to satisfy a reader, change title and chapter headings to make them more dramatic or relevant, and work towards an attention grabbing beginning or a satisfying ending. A content editor is a guide in all matters of good story-telling.
The content editor ensures that the story stays true to the author’s vision, voice and intention. The manuscript goes through as many revisions as it takes to give it shape and polish and make it effective and sellable.
When the manuscript has undergone revisions, and there will be revisions, and the content editor and author are satisfied that the story is in place, the manuscript is ready for line-editing.
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LINE EDITING
Line editors take the manuscript that has been shaped and polished, and help the author give it the sparkle necessary to make it readable and sellable.
Line editing is a qualitative process that follows content editing. Line editors understand the creative use of language elements and ensure the language used is appropriate for the reading level of the audience, conveys the intent of the author, is consistent in voice and style, reads smoothly and uses literary devices to enhance effect.
A line editor will look at the writing in great detail, gleaning out syntax errors, smoothing the flow of words, checking grammatical elements, spellings, punctuation, in general ensuring that all elements of the English language are being used appropriately. Line editors ensure that the author’s voice is not lost in the process.
After many backs and forths between the line editor and the author, the manuscript is sent to the person in charge of the editorial process for a final check. Once the manuscript is approved, it is ready for proofreading, the final stage of the editorial process.
PROOFREADING
A proofreader does the final check of the manuscript before publication. A proofreader checks for typographic mistakes in punctuation, spelling, grammar and spacing. Proofreaders check page numbers, headers, footers, sections, chapters and title. They ensure that font style and size is consistent throughout the manuscript.
Proofreaders correct but not revise. If they come across grammatical or syntax errors, they bring them to the attention of the person in charge of editorial but cannot make any changes themselves. There are reasons why proofreaders are constrained from revising; they might not be aware of language elements that appear to be incorrect but might have been intentionally inserted as a result of some agreement between author and content or line editors.
Bringing attention to the issues rather than revising them is an acceptable way for proofreaders to deal with such discrepancies. Revising the text at the proofreading stage can result in the addition or deletion of words or lines that in turn can result in the displacement of the typeset of the final copy and the disturbance of graphics.
SOME GUIDELINES FOR EDITORS
• When communicating with one another, through writing or discussions, choose words carefully, ensuring that questions and concerns address the story, not the writer or editor.
• When suggesting a change, explain the context within which the change is suggested and what prompted the change.
• Suggest revisions but do not rewrite.
• When an author is creative with words, coins words and plays around with words, do not reject without careful consideration.
• Never obliterate the author’s voice.
Although Farida has taught English in the Subcontinent, the Middle East, Farida, lives, writes, and edits from her home in Southern California. Her children’s book, Suraj the Tiger Cub, has recently been picked up by Oxford University Press.
Farida is currently working on several projects for The X, including Darkness Rising, a high fantasy adventure by fellow world traveler, Elizabeth Lunyou. Darkness Risingis slated for release later in 2014.
