When is your writing ready for an editor?

Many authors struggle to answer this question. They send their work to an editor when it isn’t ready to be edited. Or they expect the wrong kind of editing, when the work needs a different kind. For example, they give their work to a copyeditor and ask for a light copyedit, when the work needs a developmental edit—badly!

In this blog post, I will try to provide some guidelines for authors on knowing when your writing is ready for a certain kind of editor.

If you are aiming for a certain word count and need to cut out a number of words in order to conform to that word count, you need a developmental editor. A developmental editor will focus on your organization and argument, rewriting sentences or paragraphs and cutting out any superfluous words or sentences. Your work is ready for a developmental editor if you have written it to the end and want to get rid of some words, or if you think some parts could use a rewrite.

If your work contains all of the words and arguments you wish to include and has been written to your satisfaction, you are ready for a line editor. A line editor will look at your word choice and change some words for the sake of tone, flow, and clarity. In scientific manuscripts, line editors are not often used. A copyeditor will do both line editing and copyediting, which is…

…mainly fixing mechanics like spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation. The copyeditor makes the writing look professional. (I call myself a copyeditor, but I also do a great deal of line editing of the work I edit.)

Please do not give your work to a line editor or copyeditor and tell them to cut 150 words from it or make it 250 words or less. To these kinds of editors, this is like giving them unfinished writing. You don’t want to do that.

If you are an editor, which kind of editing do you mainly focus on?