What to do when you have too many proof corrections

A person reaching out from under a pile of paper, holding a pencil with a flag attached saying 'HELP'.

Too many proof corrections can play havoc with a project’s schedule and budget, and can lead to errors being introduced. My previous post looked in detail at why corrections should be minimised and what affects the number of corrections per page. It also offered a rule of thumb for when the number of corrections becomes too many (TLDR: anything above four per page probably needs to be investigated).…

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How many corrections per page are acceptable on proofs?

Many tiny red flags

In the publishing world, we often talk about corrections being ‘heavy’ or ‘light’. It’s also common to hear frustrations about authors expecting to make ‘too many’ corrections or inexperienced proofreaders introducing ‘unnecessary’ corrections. But how many corrections per page are acceptable and what constitutes ‘heavy’, ‘light’, essential and excess? And what should be done if the number is judged to be ‘too high’?…

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Why AI won’t replace human editors – and AI agrees

A caveman writing on a stone tablet with stone tools

Spend half a second on LinkedIn at the moment and you’ll find endless posts about the wondrous capabilities and/or ominous threats of ChatGPT and other AIs (and, by this point, endless posts like this one about how many such posts already exist). So I’ll keep this musing as brief as possible, because all I really want to say is this: to me it is patently obvious that AI won’t replace human editors – probably ever.…

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The value of intangible copyediting and proofreading skills

A bunch of dark and light pink sweet peas in a vase on a desk with a laptop, monitor and other office bits and pieces.

The more you work as a copyeditor or proofreader, the more you come to understand that the job is about far more than spotting errors in spelling and grammar. For me as an editorial project manager, there are certain copyediting and proofreading skills that I’ve come to value in the freelancers I work with but that are hard to pin down.…

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How to absorb any editorial style guide

A ladybird clings upside down to a stalk of grass

One page, ten pages, fifty pages or a whole published book – an editorial style guide can initially seem like an overwhelming onslaught of information that you won’t ever fully grasp. Never mind herding cats, you might feel like you have a veritable zoo of style points all clamouring for attention – and a client, author or manager poised to pounce if you neglect even one of them.…

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Making trouble: using expert editorial judgement to hunt down issues

A tangle of string symbolising the idea of making trouble for a client

‘Don’t make trouble’ is an edict that we often hear as children. Making trouble means being difficult. It raises unnecessary issues. It causes aggravation. It wastes time and thereby costs money.

The idea of making trouble also goes against a core principle that proofreaders and copyeditors learn early on: if something’s good enough, don’t change it (sometimes phrased as ‘leave well enough alone’).…

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Working in an editorial team Part II: copyeditor, typesetter or designer, proofreader and indexer

For an editorial project to meet its goals, multiple people (sometimes many) need to work together, but potentially without ever actually communicating with each other. This requires each person to have a clear understanding of their role in the process and the ripples (good or bad) they can create for others in the editorial team.

Part I of this article gave some suggestions on how the author, developmental editor and project manager can contribute to each other’s work and the work of people later on in the process.…

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Editorial midwifery: why a love of language is not enough

It’s not uncommon to hear editors alluding to what they do as a kind of midwifery. Editors (for which read ‘copyeditors’ and ‘proofreaders’ throughout) help clients to ‘birth’ books – to bring them into the world in the healthiest and best-prepared state they can, with the minimum possible fuss, mess and pain. They support clients (parents), listening carefully to their desires for their book (birth plan) and doing their utmost to make those desires a reality.…

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Disengage, re-engage: 13 tips for proofreading text you’ve already copy-edited

In the editorial world, it’s generally thought that the person who copy-edited a text shouldn’t also be the person to proofread it.

This is a sound rule to follow wherever possible: a proofreader is often referred to as a ‘fresh pair of eyes’, and this freshness can be invaluable. In the same way that an author can become blind to the errors in their own work through overfamiliarity, a copy-editor tends to lose that ‘edge’ that comes with seeing a text anew.…

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Proofreading pitfalls: nine tips to improve your proofreading strategy

The basics of proofreading are easy, right? You read through the text and mark errors to be corrected. Simple. But of course, as any competent proofreader at any level of experience knows, that’s not the whole story. A proofreader has to carry out numerous tasks to do with technical aspects, style and sense – not just spot where a crucial name is misspelled.…

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