Services

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DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

Start Right – Keep on Course

Before you’ve written your work, we can help you plan your editorial strategy (help you form a vision for the document, define your goals, and identify your potential readers) and work with you to develop your topic, plan the overall structure of the work, and create a detailed outline.

Once you begin writing, we can guide you throughout the writing process, coaching you to ensure that your vision is successfully executed.

As with all of our editing services, we make sure that we retain your voice while bringing out the flair and professionalism in your writing.

We will make sure that your manuscript:

Is well organized and structured
Follows a clear strategy throughout
Is consistent in tone and style
Is consistent in formatting and display
Is marketable and meets the needs of your target audience
Makes sense
Has no gaps in content
Meets industry standards and expectations
Demonstrates your knowledge and credibility
Is polished and professional
Clearly communicates its primary purpose
Succeeds in delivering on its major premise or promise

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COPY EDITING

Ensure that Your Copy is Dead On

Once your work is written, we can review it to insure that grammar, usage, spelling, punctuation, and other mechanics of style are perfect. We’ll check for consistency and accuracy throughout and insure that any required style guidelines are followed.

When we copy edit, we focus on the details of your work. When we engage in substantive editing (which includes copy editing), we also look at the big picture.

We usually use The Chicago Manual of Style or The Associated Press Stylebook and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, but we can use other guides on request.

We will make sure that:

Your writing is clear, correct, and comprehensible
Your work consistently follows standard editorial guidelines
Your grammar, word choice, and sentence structure is ideal
Your punctuation, capitalization, spelling, headings, subheadings, and lists are proper, consistent, and accurate
Your subjects, verbs, pronouns, and antecedents are in agreement
You don’t use slang, sexist language, or other inappropriate figures of speech
Your citations, references, glossary, notes, tables, figures, and charts are accurate and complete
Abbreviations, acronyms, numbers, and symbols are used properly
Illustrations and tables are in the right place and are referenced appropriately
Your table of contents is accurate
Notes, bibliographies, and reference lists are standardized

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PROOFREADING

One Last Check – To Make Your Work Exceptional

Although you might think that your work is perfect, it’s not uncommon for writers or reviewers to introduce errors when adding or rewriting material. That’s why it’s often valuable to have a third party make one final check before your work published.

Your work is proofread when it’s in the galley stage. It’s usually sent to us as a .pdf file. We will proofread the file and note any mistakes for you to have corrected by whoever is producing your final layout. We do our best to help you remove all errors from your work.

We will make sure that there are no:

Misspellings or word choice confusions
Grammatical errors
Missing, incorrect, or duplicate punctuation marks
Inconsistent line, word, or page spacings
Typographical errors or inconsistencies
Formatting issues
Incorrect end-of-line hyphenations
Widows or orphans
Mistaken page headers, footers, or numbers
Poor illustration or table positionings
Stylistic inconsistencies
Inaccuracies
Discrepencies from the chosen style guide