In the midst of Industrial Revolution 4.0, the dense network of information available on internet is accessible by people from all around the world. It becomes important that the content which is posted, shared, uploaded or published over different internet servers is of standard quality, informative and free of silly grammatical mistakes.
Be it content for website landing pages, content marketing or academic research papers, proofreading and editing services are crucial in delivering the right message of the articles. The digital age is all about digital content and if the content is ill-formulated, the targeted audience will lose interest in them, thereby reducing the conversion rates and ultimately the sales of the companies.
Why hire proofreaders and editors?
Majority of the companies hire editors and proofreaders to ensure that the content is doubled checked, well-written and is of the highest quality. The trans-national business operations of many companies these days have resulted in the need for various proofreading and editing services, mainly depending on the language requirement of the targeted market. Requirements of editing services, be it for content marketing or academic proofreading, is faced by all industries i.e., small-scale or large scale.
However, before you choose amongst the vast pool of editors and proofreaders available across the world, you should be acquainted with different types of editing services. Here’s a snapshot of types of proofreading and editing services to choose from:
Developmental Editing:
For those looking for consistent assistance while formulating their document should opt for developmental editing services. A developmental editor focuses on the overall structure and content of the articles. Restructuring and revision of plot, ideas, arguments and most importantly the tone of the text forms the essence of this type of editing service.
Through developmental editing, you can get a well-defined hierarchy of the article, simultaneously allowing the clients to get a better understanding of their writing proposal. For academic writing and books, development editor assists the formulation process from its nascent stage, i.e., from conception to conclusion. For those looking for editors for website content should hire a development editor that has a good knowledge SEO and user interface design.
Line Editing:
As a part of proofreading and editing services, line editing of the documents focuses on the clarity and consistency of language in each line and paragraph. A line editor looks into the structure of the sentences, whether it well-formulated, crisp and makes sense or not. Emphasis on tone, flow, lingos, grammar and punctuation in the text is crucial while line editing. A line editor majorly solves the issues related to:
- Inconsistencies in the authorial voice or the tone of the article
- Inappropriate choice of words and incorrect sentence structure
- Shortening the sentences without losing its authentic meaning
- Checking of the facts included in the texts
A line editor overall refines the draft of the document, while suggesting few important changes to the writer or author.
Copyediting:
Copyediting is all about refining the final draft of the document. There are a lot of similarities between copyediting and line editing, however, as you delve into the details, the differences between them become clearer. Broadly speaking, copyediting focuses on technical issues, for instance, it re-examines whether a sentence is formulated correctly or not. On the other hand, line editing is more about the creativity of articles and focuses on how an idea or an argument is presented in the document.
The role of a copy editor involves:
- Making corrections to the punctuations, grammar and spelling of the final draft.
- Checking the usage of hyphenation, fonts and other links in the article.
- Checking the writing style of the article. Furthermore, a copywriter should be familiar with various writing styles such as the American Psychological Association, APA, Style and Chicago Manual style.
Proofreading:
People looking for proofreading and editing services generally get confused between copyediting and proofreading services, but the two differ on several aspects. Proofreading is a final step in the editing process before the document; journal or books are sent for printing or online publication. It is not a process where you would like to alter the plot, chapters or anything substantial rather than correcting actual and simple mistakes.
Proofreading assures you the quality of the final article by correcting the typos, commas and misplaced apostrophes. A proofreader also focuses on the layout of the articles such as font size, paragraph spacing, headers, footnotes, missing bylines or the pages that are numbered incorrectly.
Information and content are exchanged at a massive scale among the industries these days situated in different regions of the world. Depending on the nature of your business and the customers, content requirement for your business might differ from others. However, in order to establish a strong online presence, an engaging content, free of plagiarism and grammatical error needs to be created for the prospective customers and business partners. Therefore, depending on your editing needs, you can choose from various types of editorial services listed above. You may even require two or more types of editors in order to meet the increasing demand for content for your business.