RC Copyediting Guide

Copyediting is the task of correcting an article or manuscript as the first step in the production process. Once a manuscript (volume, article, edition, etc.) is accepted for publication at Romantic Circles, the relevant section editor will gather all necessary documents and forward them to the RC general editors, who will then review and forward these files to the RC technical editors, who will place them in the file production system for copyediting.

The copyediting process includes all four “kinds” of copyediting:

  1. Technical editing, which involves correcting simple and complex errors of grammar and usage, as well as identifying and correcting errors of fact, quotation, and attribution;
  2. Style editing, which involves standardizing formatting, documentation, citation, elements of writing style and usage, etc., across the manuscript (or volume);
  3. Correlation editing, which involves ensuring that citations, statements of fact, descriptions, cross-references, names, titles, etc., are consistent and accurate across individual essays, the entire volume being copyedited, and (as much as possible) across the RC site; and
  4. Substantive editing, which involves correcting content issues within a manuscript, including rearranging or recasting sentences/paragraphs for clarity, identifying and removing repeated sentences/paragraphs, pointing out possible mis-readings of phrases or potentially offensive/libelous statements, suggesting cuts or elaboration for clarity, evaluating research/citation practices and querying authors for further sourcing, suggesting corrections for impenetrable/illogical arguments, etc.

For more information on these types of copyediting, see this article.

How much time should this take?

As with all tasks at RC, the always rigorous demands of the copyediting process must be evaluated in tension with expected production schedules, personal sanity, contracted work hours, and other considerations. As a general rule, the importance and required attention to the elements of copyediting decreases sequentially from #1 (technical editing) to #4 (substantive editing)—it is most important, in other words, that RC publications contain no clear grammatical or factual errors, so that task should be given the greatest priority, and so on.

Seasoned copyeditors report that edits of academic manuscripts should average about 4 pages per hour, with individual projects/essays requiring between a page an hour (for an extremely dense/sloppy manuscript requiring a lot of fact- and cross-checking) to 8 pages an hour (for an extremely clean manuscript). An editor/intern’s first few copyediting projects are likely to be fairly slow, and they should expect this as part of the learning/training process. If you feel that a specific manuscript is egregiously negligent in its preparation, or if you find your copyediting duties far more (or less) time-consuming than the rules of thumb suggested here, don’t hesitate to reach out to a senior technical editor or, if appropriate, a general editor.