Contented Manager

17 services

Business Editing and Proofreading

You have the words. They are not ready.

Illustrated character Miss Vance“Let's tidy this up.”

What is editing and proofreading?

Editing is the work done to a finished draft, by someone other than its writer, to make it correct, clear and fit for the reader it was written for. It is a separate job from writing. A writer knows what they meant, and that knowledge hides the sentence that says something else. An editor arrives without it.

In practice it covers a range of passes, each with its own question. Does the argument hold together, and is it in the right order? Does each sentence say one thing, and can it be read only one way? Are the names, numbers, dates and capitals the same on page nine as on page one? Is every claim true, and could you show the source to a sceptic? Can a person in a hurry, on a phone, or using a screen reader get what they came for? And is there a typo, because there always is?

The output for you is a document you can send. Not a marked-up draft to argue with, but a clean version, a list of what changed and why, and a short note of anything I could not settle without you. You keep your voice and your facts. What leaves is the friction between them and the reader.

Sounds familiar?

  • “A typo went out to four thousand people last month.”
  • “Our expert writes brilliantly and unreadably.”
  • “Every document reads as though a different company produced it.”

What I do in editing and proofreading

I have edited professionally since 1998, and the work has not changed much: read as the buyer will read, find where they would stumble, and fix it without leaving fingerprints. Every job starts with agreeing which kind of edit you need, because a proofread of a document that needs restructuring wastes both of our time. What follows is the specific work, grouped the way I quote it.

Editing

Copyediting is the pass most people mean when they ask for "a quick edit": grammar, usage, punctuation, consistency and accuracy, sentence by sentence, without changing what you are saying. Line editing goes one level up, to rhythm and word choice, so the writing sounds like a person and not like a committee. Structural editing works on the whole piece: which sections exist, what order they come in, and whether the argument holds when a reader takes it at face value. Clarity editing hunts the sentences that can be read two ways and fixes each one so it can only be read as you meant. Tightening long copy cuts a third from a report, a proposal or a page without losing anything a reader would miss. Tone adjustment keeps the facts and changes the register, so a technical note can be sent to a customer or an internal memo can go to the board. Consistency editing makes names, capitals, numbers, dates and terms agree from the first page to the last.

Checking

Proofreading is the last read before something goes out, on the final laid-out version, looking for typos, missing words, doubled words, wrong page references and anything the design stage broke. It assumes the editing is done. Fact-checking traces every claim, figure, name and date in a document to a source you could show a sceptic, and lists the ones that cannot be traced so you can decide what to do with them. Technical editing is for specialist material, where the editor's job is to make it readable without breaking what makes it correct; I work with your expert rather than around them. A pre-publication review is the final pass on anything that carries risk: claims about competitors, quotes that need permission, links that must work, prices that must match the price list, and statements a lawyer would wince at.

Plain language and access

Plain-language editing rewrites a document so the intended reader understands it on first reading, which is a legal requirement in some sectors and a courtesy everywhere else. Readability editing is the narrower version for a sales page or a form, bringing the sentence length and vocabulary down to where a busy person stops skimming and starts reading. An inclusive language review catches the phrasing that quietly excludes part of your market, without turning your copy into something nobody would say aloud. Alt text writing gives every image a description written by someone who understands what the image is for, not what it contains. Accessible document copy fixes the headings, structure and link text so a screen reader user can move through a document as fast as a sighted one. Descriptive link text replaces every "click here" and "read more" with words that say where the link goes.

How it is delivered

Fixed price, agreed in writing before I touch the document, based on the word count and the kind of edit. A short document is usually back within a week; a long report or a whole website takes two to three. You get the clean edited version, a marked-up version showing every change, and a one-page note of decisions I made and questions only you can answer. The pricing page explains how edits are quoted. When an edit finds that the page needs to be written again rather than repaired, that is website content, and I will tell you before you pay for the wrong service.

What I do not sell here

Academic editing of theses and journal submissions, fiction and manuscript editing, translation, and legal review. Each is a real specialism with its own conventions, and a business editor who claims all of them is guessing at some. I also do not sell an "edit" that is a spell-check with an invoice, or a light proofread of a document that needs restructuring. If the document needs a different kind of work from the one you asked for, I say so before quoting.

Everything under Editing and Proofreading

17 services in 3 groups. Most people need three or four of them, not all 17 — part of the job is working out which.

On this page

  1. What it is
  2. What I do
  3. Editing (7)
  4. Checking (4)
  5. Plain language and access (6)
  6. Vocabulary (26)
  7. Word game

Ask about editing & proofreading

Editing

7 services

Checking

4 services

Plain language and access

6 services

Editing and Proofreading vocabulary

The 26 terms you will meet in a proposal, a report or a meeting about editing and proofreading, each in one or two plain sentences. Link to any of them.

Copyediting also: copy editing
The sentence-by-sentence pass that fixes grammar, punctuation, usage and consistency without changing what the writer is saying. The standard edit for most business documents.
Line editing
An edit of rhythm, word choice and flow, one sentence at a time, so the prose reads as one person speaking clearly rather than a document assembled from parts.
Structural editing also: developmental editing
Work on the whole document before the sentences: what sections exist, what order they come in, what is missing and what should go. The edit that saves a weak draft.
Clarity editing
Finding every sentence that a reader could take two ways, and rewriting it so it can only be read as the writer meant. Ambiguity is the commonest fault in business writing.
Tightening also: cutting
Cutting words, sentences and whole passages that carry nothing the reader needs, so the same document says the same thing in fewer pages.
Register also: tone
The level of formality and the assumed relationship with the reader. A memo to staff, a proposal to a client and an apology to a customer sit in different registers.
Consistency
Names, capitals, spellings, numbers, dates and terms agreeing with each other everywhere in a document. Lost most often when several people write parts of the same piece.
Proofreading
The final read of the finished, laid-out version, looking for typos, dropped words, wrong page numbers and anything design broke. Done after editing, never instead of it.
Fact-checking
Tracing every claim, figure, quotation, name and date in a document to a source that could be shown to a sceptic, and flagging anything that cannot be traced.
Source
The document, dataset, person or page a claim comes from. A fact-checker records one for every figure so the writer can defend it later.
Technical editing
Editing specialist material, with the expert who wrote it, so it becomes readable to its audience without any of the technical content becoming wrong.
Pre-publication review also: final review
A last pass for risk rather than style: competitor claims, quotations needing permission, prices that must match the price list, dead links, and statements that invite a complaint.
Query also: author query
A note from the editor to the writer asking a question only the writer can answer, such as which of two figures is right. Delivered as a list, not fixed by guesswork.
Tracked changes also: redline
The marked-up version of an edited document, showing every deletion and insertion, so the writer can see exactly what changed and accept or reject each one.
Style sheet
The one-page record an editor keeps for a document: how each name, term, number and spelling was settled, so the same decision is made every time it recurs.
House style
The spelling, punctuation and formatting conventions an organisation has chosen for everything it publishes. Canadian spelling and CAD on every price are two examples.
Stet
The editor's instruction meaning "let it stand": a change was considered and rejected, so the original wording stays. A useful word to know when reading a marked-up draft.
Pass
One complete read of a document with a single purpose, such as consistency or facts. Editors work in passes because a reader looking for everything finds nothing.
Plain language
Writing that the intended reader understands on first reading: everyday words, short sentences, the point first. Expected by regulators in some sectors and useful in all of them.
Readability
How much effort a page asks of its reader, set mainly by sentence length, word length and structure. Lower effort keeps a busy buyer reading past the first screen.
Reading level also: reading grade
A rough measure of the schooling a reader would need to follow a text comfortably. A sales page usually wants to sit well below the level its writer is capable of.
Inclusive language
Wording that does not exclude or misdescribe a part of the audience by age, gender, ability, origin or circumstance. Reviewed so a page does not lose customers it never meant to.
Alt text also: alternative text
The short written description attached to an image, read aloud by a screen reader and shown when the image fails to load. It should say what the image is for, not just what it shows.
Screen reader
Software that reads a page or document aloud to a person who cannot see it, moving by headings, links and images. Good structure lets that reader navigate as fast as anyone.
Link text also: anchor text
The clickable words of a link. "Click here" says nothing; "download the 2026 price list" tells every reader, and every screen reader, where the link leads.
Ambiguity
A sentence that has two possible meanings, usually because of a misplaced word or a vague pronoun. Readers pick the wrong one more often than writers expect.

Test yourself on editing and proofreading

Four short games built from the vocabulary above. Nothing is recorded, nobody is watching, and the glossary is right there if you get stuck.

The word games need JavaScript. The glossary above has every term they use.

How it actually runs

The same four steps whatever the work is.

  1. A conversation

    Half an hour. What you sell, who buys it, and what is not working. No charge and no deck.

  2. A fixed number

    Scope and price in writing before anything starts. It does not change without you agreeing first.

  3. The work

    I do it, or I coach your person through it, or I bring in and manage the specialist it needs.

  4. Something you keep

    Every engagement ends with a document, a system or a trained person — not a dependency on me.

What usually comes with this

Three things that sit next to editing and proofreading often enough to be worth a look.

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