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Proof-reading and Editing Services... |
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Professional editing services just a little outside your budget?
Build your own personal editor right into Microsoft Word™.
Find spelling errors word-processors miss with smart check contextual checking.
Highlight instances of wordiness, use of the passive voice, cliches, abbreviations, complex words, and jargon.
Score readability and suitability for audience. Check for variations in sentence length and excessively long sentences.
Highlight confused words, misused words, incorrect hyphenation, sexist writing, and style errors.
Just $150 USD
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Publishers and agents seldom read manuscripts. They make decisions hastily, based on FIRST IMPRESSIONS. So do readers!
If you are serious about your writing, quality editing is essential to ensure that all-important first impression is positive.
If you can write, and all you need is a little help to ensure the words are well chosen, and the spelling and grammar is correct, we can help with proofing and editing services at reasonable rates.
For more detailed Substantitive editing, research editing, or guided rewrites, Rainbow Works can refer you to reputable editors who provide quality service at affordable rates. |
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Must I Have my Work Edited?
Investing in editing is investing in professionalism that will make your work stand above the rest. Without good quality editing, it's unlikely you'll win contests, attract agent or publisher interest, or even attract reader recommendations that will drive sales growth.
The first edits of your manuscript are your responsibility. No good author ever submits a first draft! Student writers are repeatedly advised to set their work aside for a time when that first draft is complete, then come back to it and rework it at least once—preferably twice! Then it's time to engage a 'third eye'. And friends and relatives are seldom qualified, no matter how good their command of the English language.
You need an editor capable of being totally objective—honest and direct, but tactful, and respectful of your individual style. You need someone who will highlight problems and suggest improvements, and then you need someone with an eagle eye to scan every sentence for the tiniest typo, grammatical error, missing punctuation mark, or formatting error.
What Makes a Good Editor?
You are the expert on your subject. Whether it's your business or profession, your recollections, or your viewpoint, no-one knows what you know. No-one else paints word pictures quite the way you do.
A good editor doesn't impose their views or change meaning. A good editor ensures the author's unique voice is preserved. But almost all writers need a "third eye" to spot those little problems that you, being so close to your work, just don't see. |
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Will an Editing Software Program Suffice?
Lorraine has been using Stylewriter for years, and recently added MasterEdit to her arsenal of tools. There is no doubt such tools dramatically improve your writing—both correcting errors in the piece you are working on, and helping you improve your overall writing ability. They also reduce editing costs substantially, by reducing the work an editor needs to perform. If you are engaging an editor, you should ask for a price adjustment if you are using a good software editor.
But software can never substitute for a human editor. Software is getting very smart! There's no doubt that Stylewriter has come a long way since it was first released, and MasterEdit performs wizardry on fiction, but software performs according to fixed rules. There's no scope for individual style and voice, and no tolerance for the slang and jargon that is often essential to painting a character accurately and making dialog sound realistic. No can software determine if a story flows well, climaxes in the right place, and raises and lowers tension where it should. It can't determine if Chapter 21 should be merged with 22, or if Chapter 3 would be better moved to after Chapter 5.
A good set of software tools CAN make you a much better writer, and can make writing and editing easier. Good editing software will enable you to present your work substantially error free. It can reduce editing needs and costs substantially. But it can't substitute entirely for a good professional editor. |
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The Three Stages of Editing
1. Substanttive editing and rewriting:
Note: This is editing work no software can do.
Sometimes a little rearranging of paragraphs improves clarity and flow. Substantive editing removes wordingess, the passive voice, ambiguity , and awkward transitions. The editor will check for continuity and logic error and style and voice issues. For novels, the work should be checked to ensure the conflict and tension rises and falls in the right places and the characters come to life in the reader's mind.
At this stage of editing, you should receive advice on whether chapters are presented in the best order, and whether some chapters should be combined or split. The editor should comment on the completeness of the story. Is any important information missing? Are additional scenes needed. For factual works, are more examples, explanations or references required?
Do the thoughts flow logically? Is the meaning clear at first reading? What you write invariably makes sense to you, but others may find it vague, confusing or incomplete. Without changing your words, a good editor will point out these issues and make suggestions for improvement.
For non-fiction, this stage may include research editing, to verify facts. Even for fiction works, research editing may be required. For example, it may be necessary to check the accuracy of setting descriptions and/or background historical data referenced in the story.
2. Copyediting
A copy edit checks for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization errors. Sentence structure is checked to identify problem like dangling participles or incorrect use of parallel structure.
Formatting is checked and compliance to style guidelines is verified. After a good copy edit, your manuscript should sound just like the original, but better—with any remaining pasive voice, ambiguity or wordiness removed and all those pesky little errors corrected.
Note: Mechanical editors (software like Stylewriter) can substantially fill the role of a copy editor, though mechanical editors are generally less well suited to editing fiction works.
3. Proof Reading
Proof reading should ideally follow typesetting. It should be done when the manuscript is believed to be ready for publication.
Proof readers make final check of typeset pages against copyedited pages to ensure that all changes were made correctly and to check for typographical errors such as missing quote marks or apostrophes. |
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