Wigglesworth Editing Services
Structural Editing
What is structural editing?
Structural editing proposes an organization for your manuscript. It helps make your manuscript a cohesive whole, eliminating structural weakness, while protecting its integrity and maintaining the character that makes it yours.
Structural editing is done after the author’s initial draft to review the material’s organization. Suggestions for revising, reordering, or recasting are done at this stage—some rewrites may also be suggested. You can task the editor to do some or all of the rewriting if you choose.
The types of revisions made in this step of the editing process are overarching changes to content. It may include such things as these:
- moving content from one area of the manuscript to another
- changing the order of chapters or parts
- suggesting removal or addition of content
It may also include suggestions for the following:
- changes to chapter titles or subheadings
- the addition or deletion of titles or headings
As an example, in working with a manuscript, I may suggest adding a paragraph to add clarity to the closure of a chapter. Or, I may suggest the rewrite of a chapter or a portion of a report that might have left your readership in need of more information for comprehension.
Rewriting. Where I make suggestions to add material, I can draft the material myself, for your review.
Stylistic Editing
What is stylistic editing?
Where structural editing looks at the overall organization of your manuscript, stylistic editing takes a closer look into sentence structure, comprehension, and flow.
The overall goal of stylistic editing is to ensure your manuscript flows on a line-by-line basis. You do not want the reader to stumble over sentences, losing track of meaning while they are reading. Nor do you want the reader to lose track of how the portion of text they are reading applies to the overall context of either the paragraph, chapter, manuscript, or report that the text is part of.
The focus of this edit is a review of transitions from one sentence to the next and one paragraph to the next; it looks at the internal structure of sentences and paragraphs for meaning, but not necessarily grammar—although this will naturally apply in many situations. (Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are the focus of the next step in the editing process: copy editing.)
It is during the stylistic edit that a style sheet is developed; it is imperative that the copy-editing and proofreading stages apply the information found in the style sheet.
What is a style sheet?
A style sheet is an advanced tool developed and used by the editor to ensure consistency throughout the document.
Throughout the editing process, the editor makes defensible decisions around things such as capitalization, spelling style, number formatting, the use of acronyms, symbols, abbreviations, etc. The editor consults the style sheet to ensure that these items remain consistent each time they are referenced in the document.
For businesses and corporations, having a standardized style sheet will ensure communication remains consistent across all platforms.
I create a comprehensive style sheet for every new document I edit. However, where I have worked with an author or company previously, the style sheet developed at that time will be used, if appropriate, and will be subject to updating. It is critical that the copy editor and proofreader have access to and use the style sheet.
Copy Editing
What is copy editing?
The copy edit is a word-by-word review of the mechanics of your document, looking for consistency, accuracy, and completion—bringing it to the stage where it is ready for printing (just before proofreading).
It is at this stage that a review of grammar, punctuation, and spelling are completed. But it is even more detailed than this, with a review of tables, figures, lists, and consideration of items such as measurements, numbering formats, whether web links work (where appropriate), the placement of headings and art, and more.
At the copy-editing stage, items that were not addressed at previous stages may be added to the style sheet.
