N L Heaney
NLHEANEY.COM writer | editor | content strategist
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Editing

Freelance editor transforming hard copy or digital content into elegant, clear, insightful copy. Comprehensive, substantive, structural, copy editing and proofreading services offered.

Editing

Nicky is a digital content strategist. If you have existing copy or content that’s not meeting its target, she can transform it into elegant, insightful, and clear text.

The editing process can be broken into three levels; depending upon the current stage your project, you may find one, or all (a comprehensive edit) will help.

SUBSTANTIVE/STRUCTURAL EDITING

Solidifies the core structure of the document. Think of the foundations of a building; structural editing considers the document’s purpose and audience, and then builds its content accordingly. It examines:

Language:

  • Is the voice consistent and tailored to the audience?

  • Is it conveyed efficiently, logically and unambiguously?

  • Is there unnecessary repetition, jargon, or overall wordiness?

  • Is there unnecessary or contradictory material?

  • Does the document’s tone and style represent the author’s style?

Structure:

  • Is there too much/not enough content?

  • Is it logically laid out/does it flow?

  • Are reader aids (index/graphs/images) needed?

  • Is the information accurate?

  • Does it need rewriting for clarity?

Photo: Post-It Notes stuck on a wall, arranged in a grid of 3x3.

Presentation:

  • Is it clearly laid out and easy to navigate?

  • Are all titles and headings consistently styled and accurate?

  • Are all reader aids (tables/graphs etc) appropriately placed and labelled?

  • Have all references and abbreviations/symbols/terms been defined and included?

COPYEDITING

Focuses on detail. The document’s grammar, spelling, accuracy and consistency are examined. It might include some light rewording if a sentence is unclear. We review:

Language:

Photo: A4 page with editing markup. A red pen lies in the lower left.

  • grammar

  • syntax

  • spelling

  • punctuation

  • clarity of expression

Visual Consistency:

  • typography

  • headings

  • layout

  • figures, tables and captions

Language Consistency:

  • parallelism and terms

  • spelling and capitalisation

  • hyphenation and abbreviations

  • expression of numbers and qualitative data

Photo: A white A4 page with proofreading marks on a bulleted list of text.

PROOFREADING

Ensures the document is ready for publication.

  • Are all the elements in order?

  • Have all amendments been inserted?

  • Has all of the spelling and punctuation been corrected?

  • Are the end-of-line breaks appropriate?

  • Are there rivers or orphans?

“The English language is full of words just waiting to be misspelled, and the world is full of sticklers, ready to pounce.”
— Mary Norris (author, writer and copy editor for The New Yorker)