Copyediting is most efficient when the manuscript's underlying facts, sequence, and continuity are already reliable.
Glossary term
Copyediting
Copyediting reviews text for correctness, consistency, clarity, style, grammar, usage, and editorial house rules.
Definition
What copyediting means
Copyediting is usually a later-stage editorial pass that improves consistency and correctness after larger story or structural changes are stable.
A copyedit may regularize capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and style-sheet choices across the manuscript.
Wise Wombat is useful before copyediting because it can surface continuity problems that require story-level decisions.
Related
Related continuity terms
These terms often appear together during manuscript revision.
Editorial style sheet
An editorial style sheet records spelling, capitalization, punctuation, names, terms, and usage decisions for consistent editing.
Developmental editing
Developmental editing looks at big-picture story, structure, argument, character, pacing, and reader experience.
Proofreading
Proofreading is a final quality pass for remaining errors after editing, layout, or production preparation.