6 Tabs I Always Have Open as I Copyedit
These references are my constant companions
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes when a copy editor polishes your content? It’s mostly reading a sentence three times and sometimes going back to read it a fourth; pondering; and looking things up.
As editor Crystal Shelley of Rabbit with a Red Pen once said, “Editing is just looking things up until you die.”
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What are editors looking up?
correct style (e.g., does the client want it to appear as 10 or as ten, as colour or color; do they use accent marks or no; do they like the ellipsis character mark or the three periods plus three spaces)
correct spelling
dates and job titles, etc. (to confirm them, in a sort of light fact check)
obscure grammar rules we don’t know off the top of our head or want to double-check for a tricky situation
definitions of words to make sure the writer has used them well
The list goes on.
To look up that stuff as I copyedit, I always have these six tabs open:
The Chicago Manual of Style or The Associated Press Style Book
clients’ house editorial style guide
site:website.com and “X”
The Chicago Manual of Style hyphenation guide
online search engine
‘The Chicago Manual of Style’ or ‘The Associated Press Style Book’
The two most typical style guides my clients use. Depending on the project, I’ll have one of them open for reference (I subscribe to the online versions). These resources offer guidance on everything from grammar, punctuation, and formatting to the correct usage of numbers, abbreviations, capitalization, and more.
Clients’ house editorial style guide
Many clients—though not all—use a house style guide in addition to one of the industry-wide guides above. I love when a client has an editorial style guide, but for clients who don’t, I can easily create one. These house guides contain specific preferences and brand-related language use that enables me to tailor the copyediting process to each client.
site:website.com and “X”
This online search engine technique comes in super handy mainly when a client doesn’t have a house style guide, and even when they do.
Typing site:website.com into a search enginerestricts the search results to only pages from the specified website. To search for a specific word or phrase, I add it in quotation marks after site:website.com and the word and: e.g., site:website.com and “X” searches for the exact word or phrase “X” on that site.
I use this tool to quickly find out how a client has typically styled a word or phrase on their website. It’s a great way to determine how a publication or organization has most commonly styled a word—even if the staff themselves aren’t sure. For example, imagine my client is The Daily News Bites, and the newspaper has a house style guide, but it doesn’t specify to use healthcare or health care as a noun. I can search site:dailynewsbites.com and “health care” as well as site:dailynewsbites.com and “healthcare” to see which style the newspaper uses most often (and then I can add that preference to the style guide I make for the client).
To use this tool successfully, I need a search engine that lists the number of search results so I can determine which style is most common.
That’s the entire reason I stopped using Google Search and now use Microsoft Bing. I’d love to use a data-privacy search engine like DuckDuckGo (I did use Neeva before it went belly up), but again, seeing the number of search results is critical, and DuckDuckGo doesn’t allow that.
https://x.com/PristineEditing/status/1483573898973220870
Merriam-Webster
My go-to dictionary. In May 2024, AP style made M-W its official primary dictionary, which means I can use M-W for all of my clients, whether they use Chicago or AP style.
I most often use Merriam-Webster to:
check hyphenations
see if a foreign word is listed (if a foreign word appears in M-W, it doesn’t need to be italicized, as is common style for foreign words — although there are exceptions to that)
clarify the precise meaning of a word in context to make sure the writer’s word choice is accurate
The ‘Chicago Manual of Style’ hyphenation guide
Half the time I’m searching for a word in Merriam-Webster, it’s simply to check if a word is hyphenated or not. This guide provides clear rules for hyphenation (for Chicago style, that is), ensuring uniformity of style throughout a document.
Online search engine
I’m constantly searching for nouns and proper nouns—company names, historical figures, scientific terms, etc.—to check that they’re spelled correctly and in the correct case (e.g., capitalized or lowercase).
This often leads to a little fact-checking too. In looking up the spelling of a politician’s name, for example, I’ve occasionally caught a writer calling that politician a senator when they’re a House representative.
Similar to site:website.com and “X” above, I often use an online search engine to determine which style for a word or phrase is the most used (and therefore the most SEO-friendly). For example, if I want to determine whether school teacher or schoolteacher is more common, I add quotation marks around each term in the search: e.g., “school teacher” and “schoolteacher.” Microsoft Bing tells me that school teacher has 36,200,000 results while schoolteacher has 138,000 results.
So, there you have it! These six tabs are my trusty crew when it comes to copyediting. Having these resources readily available allows me to ensure my clients’ content adheres to the highest editorial standards.
Do you have any questions about these resources or the copyediting process in general? Feel free to leave a comment below.
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Hi, I’m Jaime, editor and owner of Pristine Editing LLC. To get to know me better, and for more editing tips, sign up for my quarterly email newsletter! You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don’t miss out on my free style guide template.
A Roundup of My Favorite Quotes from ACES Accelerate
Nuggets of wisdom from writers and editors to other editors
ACES Accelerate was a virtual conference held by ACES: The Society for Editing, of which I am a member. There was so much to take away from the sessions at this conference that I could write many a blog post in reaction (coming soon!), but I wanted to share a quick roundup of my favorite quotes from a few presenters.
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Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, is a blogger turned NYTimes-bestselling author who was the keynote speaker at ACES Accelerate. She had us laughing throughout her whole speech yet at the same time shared poignant insights on the writer-editor relationship, which is the exact charm of Jenny Lawson.
Cara Reedy, director at Disabled Journalists Association, and Wendy Lu, a senior staff editor at The New York Times, presented on avoiding disability euphemisms in the news. A couple points Reedy made stuck with me.
Lisa McLendon, who runs the Bremner Editing Center at the University of Kansas journalism school, offered some gems of advice that apply to all copy editors. Both of these are golden rules of copyediting.
Enjoy this post? Buy me a coffee in support.
Hi, I’m Jaime, editor and owner of Pristine Editing LLC. To get to know me better, and for more editing tips, sign up for my quarterly email newsletter! You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don’t miss out on my free style guide template.
I’m a Longtime Pro Editor Offering Consultation to New Editors
Access me for advice at BuyMeACoffee.com
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As with trying to start any new side gig, breaking into freelance editing can be daunting.
While there’s a wealth of online courses and books that share how to be a successful freelancer and editor, true confidence in your skills comes with practice over time.
If you’re new to editing, you may not feel 100% certain of your ability to meet clients’ needs or deliver quality editing services. Those feelings of insecurity or imposter syndrome are an obstacle to your success as a freelance editor.
For me, learning the ropes of editing under the mentorship of more experienced editors was crucial to the development of my skills and confidence.
So I decided to try and create the same experience for others. I want this Buy Me a Coffee community to be a place where new or aspiring editors — freelance or otherwise — can reach out to me for advice or assistance.
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On Buy Me a Coffee, I’m offering two memberships:
☕ The Skim Readers. I will do a weekly Q&A, giving a long-form answer to a member’s question about any aspect of editing or freelancing. $5/month or $50/year.
☕ The Word Surgeons. In addition to getting access to the Q&A, Word Surgeon members will also get one hourlong consultation with me per month, during which you can ask me anything or even have me review your edits to a project so you can feel extra confident you’re providing quality to a client. $45/month or $450/year.
Read more details about the Word Surgeons membership.
My hope is that these memberships will ease the doubts and anxiety you may feel as you go forward.
I so look forward to welcoming you to my editing community!
My Background As an Editor
After four years of honing my editing chops at NYC magazines, I began freelancing full-time in January 2018, and I haven’t looked back!
Today I specialize in copy editing and line editing branded content, websites, blogs, fiction books, print and digital magazines, apps, daily newsletters, and more for clients who are all over the map — geographically and industry-wise.
You can learn more about my clients and history on my website or LinkedIn.
Also, after several people reached out to ask me how I became a freelance editor, I created the below video to answer that question.
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Every year of freelancing has been different than the one before. And that’s something I love about it: Freelancing is a constant experiment in how I can be doing things better, faster, or smarter.
It can be nerve-racking! But it’s also fun, and I believe that it has made me a better, more competitive editor than I was while working for one company.
Enjoy this post? Buy me a coffee in support.
Hi, I’m Jaime, editor and owner of Pristine Editing LLC. To get to know me better, and for more editing tips, sign up for my quarterly email newsletter! You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don’t miss out on my free style guide template.
Can an Editor Also Be a Writer?
Yes. Here’s why being a “sometimes writer” makes me a better editor.
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Acquaintance: “What do you do?”
Me: “I’m an editor and sometimes writer.”
That’s been my response for a few years now.
Editing is my main gig. Most of my work over the past decade has been focused on editing. Most of my clients use me for editing, not writing.
Still, there’s never been a time in my career when I was doing only editing or only writing. The two are inseparable.
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My first job after undergrad was as a reporter and staff writer for an industry newspaper. The team was so small—me, plus another journalist—that he and I also proofread each other’s work.
As an editorial intern at Food52 in NYC, I would regularly write and line-edit articles. (You can view my posts here.) At Well+Good, I line-edited five articles a day and occasionally pitched ideas for travel tips and essays.
When I began my role as copy editor at Time Out, my daily responsibilities revolved around editing. But it was simple to pitch a story idea to the editors of each vertical—they were only a desk away, and everyone was encouraged to contribute to editorial brainstorm sessions. Sometimes vertical editors needed all hands on deck to write a feature, or their regular freelance writer wasn’t available and they were desperate for help.
So, while I was at Time Out, I wrote blog posts and theater and restaurant and hotel and bar reviews, and I contributed to features. (Plenty of magazine copy editors occasionally write something—for instance, The Atlantic’s copy chief, Janice Wolly.)
Later, as a freelancer, I routinely wrote case studies for a client who then asked me to developmental-edit other writers’ case studies because mine were strong. #humblebrag
In the freelance world, a huge emphasis is placed on niching.
New freelancers are told that the best way to attract clients is by choosing a niche—the one thing you are an expert in (or say you’re an expert in). Advanced freelancers advise that a niche is key to charging more money because you can claim to be an expert, the best in the biz in that one thing.
Consequently, people looking to hire a freelancer are told to avoid jack-of-all-trades. It’s a red flag if a freelancer claims to be good at too many things.
I agree—to some extent.
But I firmly believe that being a writer makes me a better editor.
By writing, I remember the writer’s perspective. I’m reminded of how frustrating and tedious the writing process can be and how much effort and dedication it takes.
More important, I recall what it feels like to receive criticism of my writing. And that makes me a more empathetic editor.
I aim to be sensitive, clear, and specific in comments to writers and authors because I know what it’s like to receive disrespectful, vague, ineffectual feedback on writing I worked hard to produce.
As a writer, I appreciate constructive criticism on what could be better in my work, and positive feedback floods me with motivation. It gives me the fuel I need to get to the next draft. And that’s exactly what I want to inspire among my clients, authors and content producers alike.
When I polled other editors on Twitter, 42.9% said they too also write, while 40% of editors said the same in an Instagram poll (only seven people voted, but still!).
Of course, I’ve met excellent editors who simply don’t like writing.
But I feel that it gives me a competitive edge and makes me more valuable to my clients. Plus, I enjoy exercising the writing muscle!
So, in honor of Freelance Writers Appreciation Week (Feb. 13–19), here’s to all the other editors out there who also write.
Hi, I’m Jaime, editor and owner of Pristine Editing LLC. To get to know me better, and for more editing tips, sign up for my quarterly email newsletter! You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don’t miss out on my free style guide template.