Mechanical Level Editing Specifications

 

Our Mechanical Editing goes far beyond proofreading. Our comprehensive manuscript coverage includes detailed editing for structural continuity and accuracy based on 18 different categories:

 

Spelling errors:

 

• Basic spelling errors
• Errors involving similar spelling or sound alike:

 

• “there,” “their,” and “they're”
• “affect” and “effect”
• “two,” “too,” and “two”
• “it's” and “its”

 

• Errors in both singular and plural possessives

 

Punctuation errors:

 

• Hyphenations
• Commas
• Semicolons
• Colons
• En dashes and em dashes
• Quotation mark
• Apostrophes

 

Grammar errors:

 

• Subject and verb usage
• Tense problems: Do you find yourself lost in time rereading your manuscript, or spending extraneous hours discussing with your editors or test readers about the time line of your story? Our editors only know too well how contentious tense issues could be, and advise you earliest how best to deal with them.
• Plural and singular problems
• Basic word, sentence, and paragraph syntax
• Run-on sentences and sentence fragments

 

Changes in word choice:

 

• Overused words
• Clearer word choices
• Pointing out offensive words

 

What it does not include and What we will not do:

• Suggest improvements to enhance the content
• Add or delete sections of manuscript
• Reorder material
• Check formatting of references cited
• Identify inconsistencies or contradictions within the text
• Make changes in plot, concept, or character definition
• Characterization details
• Basically change the content, flow, or author's writing style in any manner.

 

Substantive Editing

Substantive Editing focuses on the organization and presentation of the existing content. The substantive editor may make wholesale revisions to sections of the work. They may rewrite sections of the manuscript, improving text line by line. An editor doing substantive editing may rephrase a section of the manuscript for smoothness. He may rewrite or guide the author in rewriting to eliminate ambiguity. He may bring attention to text that raises issues but does not address them. He may reorganize whole portions of the work. He may point out any statements that seem incorrect.