Copyediting & Proofreading Essentials
Certificate EP10
Journalism, Editing & Publishing
Learning Method: Correspondence with online support

Career opportunities include: Copyeditor, Proofreader, Publishing Assistant, Sub-Editor, Freelance Copyeditor and Proofreader. With further study and development you can advance to Editor, Book Editor, Commissioning Editor, Technical Editor or Managing Editor.

Industries include: book publishing, newspaper/magazine publishing, media, educational publishing, government publishing, printing, small business and corporate areas, and the community sector.

Many people ask: What is the difference between editors, book editors, copy editors and proofreaders? To help you to understand these areas better, so that you can make an informed decision about the educational pathway you are considering and because we like to provide as much advice and support for your career pathway as we can, we have briefly outlined these roles for you here.

Editor, Managing Editor, Book Editor, Commissioning Editor or Acquisitions Editor
In terms of responsibility these roles can mean the same thing, even though there will be variations from industry-to-industry and organisation-to-organisation. You might be called an Editor (many industries) or a Managing Editor (usually magazine publishing); a Commissioning Editor, Acquisitions Editor or Book Editor (book publishing), or even a Chief Editor (newspaper publishing). Your role may cover any of the following:

• Manage staff or oversee departments that have supervisors appointed to run the day-to-day tasks.
• Acquire new titles for the publishing house to sell. These can be educational titles, fiction or non-fiction titles, children's books, magazines, newspapers, trade publications and so on. Many corporate organisations will also have an Editor that may be responsible for managing production of media publications, advertising materials, web content and so on. Editors can select titles/materials they think will promote/sell successfully and reject those they feel won't.
• Undertake substantive editing for manuscripts/documents being prepared for release (substantive editing involves making suggestions on how to improve the content). Depending on the industry, these can be book manuscripts; film, television or radio scripts; curriculum and course documents; newspapers, magazines or trade journals; speeches; promotional, advertising and marketing materials; business documents; legal or financial documents. It can also cover print-based materials or electronic materials (such as web content or multimedia content).

Copyeditor (Also Sub-editor, Script Editor in other industries)
'Copy' simply means text. This can be text in documents, publications, promotional materials and in web content. Copyeditors will check for mistakes in text but not make suggestions as to how to improve the manuscript. They may also check consistency throughout the document, check for grammar problems, make sure page numbers are correct, check that facts are stated correctly, proof the table of contents, check the alignment of pictures and tables, and so on, depending on the requirements by the editor.

Copyeditors who work for magazines or newspapers are called sub-editors; however, sub-editors will also need a foundation in either newspaper or magazine journalism.

Script editors work in the film, television, radio or general media industry editing scripts ('copy') for movies, shows, documentaries, speeches and so on. They need a good knowledge of dialogue script editing, which is different to copyediting or sub-editing.

Proofreader
Proofreaders read the text and pick up all types of errors. They do not offer editing, publishing, journalistic or scripting suggestions. They focus on typing mistakes, missing words, punctuation, capitalisation and so forth. A proofreader needs to have a good eye for detail and be patient and very careful as they read word-by-word and line-by-line.

A proofreader may end up proofreading a manuscript or document several times to pick up as many errors as possible. Often a manuscript or document will need to be proofread by a few different proofreaders in order to find all the errors. This can mean a book or publication can undergo as many as six proofreads before printing. Of course, this is not always financially practical (for the publisher or the author) and so books and publications will have early releases and pre-releases while errors are still being ironed out. This is much like the software industry where software programs are pre-released into the market (e.g. beta releases) and 'bug-fixer' versions (e.g. service packs and patches) are released after the programmers have had a chance to vet them in the marketplace. It is a more time practical, resource-effective and financially viable approach to publishing in any industry. So, a proofreader may also be appointed to proofread a reprint manuscript of a book or publication that has already been released.