"Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that a text is free of grammatical and factual errors."
The roles of copy editors and proofreaders in the production of print journalism, including their responsibilities for fact-checking, grammar, and style.
Grammar and syntax: The rules and conventions of sentence structure and the use of words and punctuation.
Spelling and vocabulary: The correct spelling of words and understanding of language usage.
Style guides: Familiarization with different style guides (e.g. AP, Chicago, MLA) and their rules.
Copyediting marks: Understanding of the symbols that are used to indicate changes while proofreading.
Fact-checking: Verifying the accuracy of information presented in a document or article.
Proofreading techniques: Methods to ensure accuracy, consistency, and clarity while proofreading.
Content editing: Assessing the overall structure, flow, and coherence of an article, including its content and tone.
Headline and caption writing: Crafting and editing concise, engaging, and accurate headlines and captions.
Formatting: Formatting text for readability and consistency, including spacing, indentation, and font choices.
Ethical considerations: Understanding plagiarism, copyright infringement, and other ethical concerns related to journalistic writing.
Structural Editing: This process involves reorganizing, deleting, and adding content for improved readability and understanding. It looks at the organization and flow of the content and the appropriateness of the language for the target audience.
Substantive Editing: Substantive editing involves reviewing a document for accuracy, consistency, and coherence. It focuses on improving the content's quality, making it more accurate, clear and useful by checking the facts, eliminating or restructuring inappropriate content, clarifying complex, technical jargon, or poorly written language.
Copyediting: Copyediting entails examining the document for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntax errors. It checks for stylistic consistency, accuracy, and completeness of content.
Line Editing: Line editing reviews the document's style, tone and voice, word choice and potential ambiguity, and sentence structure to ensure the content is readable and understandable.
Fact-Checking: Fact-checking is an essential part of editing publications that require accuracy, such as periodicals, newspapers, and scientific journals. Fact-checking involves verifying the accuracy of all factual information cited in the document and ensuring that it is reliable, authoritative, and up-to-date.
Proofreading: Proofreading is the final step in the editing process, done after all other types of editing have taken place. It involves checking the content for any spelling, grammar, punctuation, or formatting errors that may have been missed during editing.
"The Chicago Manual of Style states that manuscript editing encompasses 'simple mechanical corrections (mechanical editing) through sentence-level interventions (line, or stylistic, editing) to substantial remedial work on literary style and clarity, disorganized passages, baggy prose, muddled tables and figures, and the like (substantive editing).'"
"Copy editing is done before typesetting and again before proofreading."
"The term 'copy editing' is used more broadly, and is sometimes referred to as proofreading; the term sometimes encompasses additional tasks."
"...they do not have a license to rewrite a text line by line, nor do they prepare material on an author's behalf."
"Creating original content to be published under another person's name is called 'ghostwriting'."
"Copy editors are expected to query structural and organizational problems, but they are not expected to fix these problems."
"An editor who performs developmental editing is called a copy editor."
"The supervising editor of a group of copy editors may be known as the 'copy chief', 'copy desk chief', or 'news editor'."
"In the United Kingdom, the term 'copy editor' is used, but in newspaper and magazine publishing, the term is subeditor (or 'sub-editor'), commonly shortened to 'sub'."
"Similar to print, online copy editing is the process of revising and preparing the raw or draft text of web pages for publication."
"Copy editing has three levels: light, medium, and heavy."
"Depending on the budget and scheduling of the publication, the publisher will let the copy editor know what level of editing to employ."
"The chosen type of editing will help the copy editor prioritize their efforts." (Note: After question 14, there are no specific quotes directly answering the remaining questions. The paragraph does not provide information on the remaining aspects.)