The Copy Editing Checklist Every Writer Should Use

Gary Smailes | 5 November 2025

Set Up Your Copy Edit: Tools, Scope, and Style

Your draft needs a map. Give your editor the right tools, set the borders, and agree on how you will work together. This saves time, money, and frayed nerves.

Pick your references first

Choose a primary style guide. Books often use Chicago. Journalists lean on AP. Academia leans on APA or MLA. State the choice up front.

Pair it with a dictionary. US projects use Merriam-Webster. UK projects use Oxford. Set the document language to match. Word and Docs both allow this, which helps spelling and hyphenation.

Two fast examples:

• If you pick Chicago with Merriam-Webster, you get the serial comma, US punctuation with quotes, and program over programme.
• If you pick Oxford with British spelling, you get organisation, single quotes for dialogue in many houses, and hyphen styles that reflect UK norms.

If you want exceptions, note them on a style sheet. Do not rely on memory.

Align on language, tone, and level of edit

Lock the language variant. en-US or en-GB. Include regional flavor if needed. Canadian English? Australian English? Say so.

Define tone. Plainspoken. Playful. Academic. Newsroom crisp. A sentence that guides tone helps everyone. For example, “Short, friendly sentences for busy founders.”

Agree on level.

• Light. Correctness only. Typos, punctuation, small grammar fixes. Minimal rephrasing.
• Medium. Correctness plus clarity. Trims wordiness. Flags awkward lines. Polishes headings and lists.
• Heavy. Sentence surgery while preserving voice. Resolves tangled syntax. Reorders phrases for flow. Queries often.

Pick one level for the whole project, or assign by chapter type. For example, heavy on the intro, light on appendices.

Mini exercise. Copy one page. Ask the editor for a 10-minute sample at the level you prefer. Review the tone and touch. Adjust before the full pass begins.

Build a living style sheet

A style sheet is the project’s memory. Start it on day one and keep it open while you revise.

Include:

• Spelling choices. Email or e-mail. Percent or %. US or UK variants.
• Hyphenation. Decision-making, not decision making. Well being or well-being. Prefixes like coauthor or co-author.
• Capitalization. Job titles in running text. Headline case vs sentence case. Branded terms.
• Numbers. Words vs numerals. Dates and times. Time zones. Ranges with an en dash. Nonbreaking spaces with units, like 10 km.
• Titles and emphasis. Italics for books and newspapers. Quotes for articles and chapters. Foreign words on first use in italics, then roman after.
• Project terms. Character names, place spellings, in-house jargon. Definitions for niche terms.

Add examples to each entry. A few lines make decisions stick. Share updates with every file handoff.

Set boundaries so everyone stays in their lane

Copy editing sharpens two things, clarity and consistency. Expect fixes to grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, and format. Expect queries about logic or continuity. Expect light smoothing of phrasing where meaning stays intact.

Copy editing does not reshape scenes, restructure arguments, or recast voice. That falls under developmental or line editing.

A good query sounds like this. “Timeline check. Chapter 2 says Friday night. Chapter 3 opens on Friday morning with the same event. Shift needed?” Notice the question. Notice the neutral tone. Problems surface without rewriting your style.

If you want more intervention in certain sections, say so in the brief. For example, “Heavy edit on case studies. Light on the personal essay.”

Lock down version control

Sloppy files breed errors. Tight files protect the text.

Set a naming system.

• Title_Author_CE_v01_2025-03-12.docx
• Title_Author_AuthorReview_v02_2025-03-18.docx
• Title_Author_CE_Final_v03_2025-03-24.docx

Keep one master folder. Archive older versions in a subfolder when you move forward. Do not revise an out-of-date file.

Turn on tracked changes. Use comments for queries, sources, and decisions linked to the style sheet.

Agree on “stet.” Stet means leave the original. Use it when an edit alters voice or intent. Mark with a comment if needed, for example, “Stet for rhythm, matches voice elsewhere.”

Decide how you will resolve conflicts. One pass of author responses, then a short clean-up pass by the editor. No mid-pass rewrites.

Send a one-page brief

Give your editor a quick, clear brief. One page. No fluff. Include:

• Title and author
• Genre and audience
• Word count and deadline
• Comparable titles, two or three
• Style guide and dictionary
• Language variant
• Level of edit, light, medium, or heavy
• Non-negotiables, for example, serial comma, US dates, single quotes in headlines
• Tone notes, one or two lines
• Special elements, sidebars, pull quotes, tables, code blocks, captions
• Sensitive topics or legal risk areas
• Style sheet link
• Sample pages, five to ten pages that reflect typical prose

A sample brief line might read, “Tone, warm and direct. Short sentences. Avoid slang.” Another, “Numbers, numerals for 10 and above. Words for one to nine.”

If you work with a team, list roles and email addresses. Note who signs off on queries. Confirm the handoff plan at the end of copy edits, both a tracked version and a clean file with edits accepted, plus the updated style sheet.

Quick setup checklist

• Choose guide and dictionary, then set document language
• Write tone guidance in one or two sentences
• Confirm level of edit across sections
• Start the style sheet and share it
• Set file naming rules, tracking, and stet policy
• Send the one-page brief with sample pages

Do this prep, and your copy edit runs smooth. Fewer surprises. Cleaner pages. A book that reads like it belongs together.

Language Mechanics Checklist: Grammar, Punctuation, and Usage

Clean mechanics do quiet work. They keep readers focused on meaning, not mistakes. Use this pass to tighten the nuts and bolts before anyone wastes time on higher-order fixes.

Grammar and syntax

Start with agreement. The subject and verb must match in number.

• Good: The list is long.
• Good: The lists are long.
• Watch collective nouns. The team is winning in US style. The team are winning in some UK houses. Choose and stay consistent.
• None takes a singular verb in formal US style. “None of the cake is left.” In speech, plural can slip through. Decide in your style sheet.

Pronoun case and reference.

• I vs me. “She and I went,” not “Her and me went.”
• Who vs whom. Who does the action. Whom receives it. “Who called?” “To whom did you speak?”
• Make the reference clear. “When Maya joined the call, she said the delay worried her.” Not “When Maya joined, it worried her.” What is it?

Modifier placement.

• Put the modifier next to the word it modifies. “Only I ate the cake” differs from “I ate only the cake.”
• Fix danglers. “Walking to the station, I saw the storm roll in.” Not “Walking to the station, the storm rolled in.”

Parallel structure.

• Keep forms aligned in lists and paired ideas. “We value clarity, accuracy, and speed.” Not “We value clarity, to be accurate, and moving fast.”
• Use matched pairs like either and or, both and and, whether and or.

Fragments and run-ons.

• A fragment can work in fiction or voicey nonfiction. Use sparingly and on purpose. “As if that would help.”
• Fix run-ons with a period, a comma plus a coordinating conjunction, or a colon where the second clause explains the first. Avoid comma splices.

Tense and voice consistency.

• Pick a tense and stick with it inside a scene or section. “He opens the door. He looks out.” Or “He opened the door. He looked out.”
• Use passive voice only when the doer is unknown or unimportant. “The window was broken overnight” works if you do not know who did it. Otherwise, name the actor.

Usage traps

Confusions that trip readers.

• Affect vs effect. Affect is a verb. “How did the change affect sales?” Effect is a noun. “The effect was small.”
• Lay vs lie. Lay takes an object. “Lay the book down.” Lie does not. “Lie down.”
• Fewer vs less. Fewer for countable things. Less for mass. “Fewer tickets, less time.”
• Farther vs further. Farther for distance. Further for degree or time.

Preposition creep.

• Trim stacked prepositions. “Outside the house,” not “Outside of the house.” “Where are you,” not “Where are you at.”
• Watch weak strings like “in order to.” Most times, “to” works fine.

Redundancy.

• Cut twinned words. “Each and every” becomes “each.” “Free gift” becomes “gift.” “Past history” becomes “history.”

Ambiguity.

• The word only often drifts. Park it next to what it modifies. “She only edited chapter two” means she did nothing else to chapter two. “She edited only chapter two” means she skipped the others.

Punctuation choices

Serial comma policy.

• Choose a rule and use it everywhere. Chicago favors the serial comma. AP drops it unless clarity suffers.
• Meaning can hinge on one comma. “I dedicate this to my parents, Oprah and Dwayne” suggests Oprah and Dwayne are your parents. Add the serial comma if you did not mean that.

Comma splices.

• Do not join two sentences with a comma. Fix with a period or a comma plus and, but, or another coordinating conjunction. A colon also works if the second sentence explains or expands on the first.

Semicolons vs colons.

• A semicolon links two complete sentences that are closely related. Use when a period feels too sharp and a conjunction feels wordy. Do not use a semicolon before a list.
• A colon points to what follows, often an explanation or a list. “Bring three things to the workshop: a laptop, your style guide, and a short sample.”

Dashes.

• An em dash marks a break in thought or an aside. Some houses use spaces around it, some do not. Set the rule in your sheet and stay consistent.
• An en dash shows ranges or connections. “Pages 5–9.” “The New York–London route.” Do not substitute a hyphen.

Ellipses.

• Use three dots. In Chicago, space before and after when showing a mid-sentence omission. In dialogue, ellipses can show trailing off. Do not turn them into a dozen dots.
• Hyphenation.

• Hyphenate compound modifiers before a noun when needed for clarity. “Well-known author.” No hyphen after the noun. “The author is well known.”
• Prefixes. Many close up per modern dictionaries. Email over e-mail. Coordinate over co-ordinate in US style. Check your chosen dictionary.

Apostrophes.

• Possession. Child’s toy for one child. Children’s toys for many. For names ending in s, Chicago favors Jones’s. AP uses Jones’.
• No apostrophes for simple plurals. CDs, URLs, CEOs. Use an apostrophe only to avoid confusion in rare cases, like a’s and i’s when discussing letters.

Quotation marks.

• Set smart quotes and apostrophes in your software. Straight quotes look sloppy in print.
• US style places commas and periods inside closing quotes. UK houses often place them outside when they do not belong to the quoted material. Choose one system and enforce it.

Dialogue mechanics

Tags and punctuation.

• Place the comma inside the closing quote in US style. “I’m leaving,” she said.
• Questions keep the question mark inside. “You’re leaving?” he said. If the tag becomes the main clause, capitalise it. She asked, “Are you leaving?”
• Action beats take periods. No commas before the closing quote. “I’m leaving.” She tossed the keys.

Said vs synonyms.

• Said and asked are invisible. Use them. Save “exclaimed” and friends for rare emphasis.

Nested quotes.

• Use single quotes inside double in US style. “Then she said, ‘No way.’” In UK houses, many flip this. Confirm before you start.

Interior thoughts.

• Choose a system. Many use italics for direct thoughts. Others keep thoughts in roman and lean on free indirect style. Either way, be consistent.

Dialect and slang.

• A pinch goes a long way. Signal flavor, then steady the spelling. Avoid eye-dialect that mocks. Let word choice and rhythm carry voice.

Spelling and variants

Set document language to match your audience. Word and Google Docs both support this. Spellcheck then knows which variants to flag.

Standardize choices.

• US style. Color, program, analyze.
• UK style. Colour, programme in some fields, analyse.
• Brands and proper nouns. Check official sources. LinkedIn uses a capital L and I. YouTube has a capital Y and T. Add tricky names to your style sheet.

Watch homophones.

• Compliment vs complement. Principal vs principle. Stationary vs stationery. Build a list of your usual offenders.

Action: quick targeted passes

Do a few fast sweeps before you hand off.

• Find double spaces and replace with single spaces.
• Replace spaced en dashes with true en dashes. Search for space-hyphen-space and fix.
• Remove stray tabs and manual line breaks. Use styles instead.
• Search for repeated words. “The the,” “and and.”
• Standardize quotes and apostrophes to smart characters.
• Normalize ellipses to three dots.
• Run a consistency checker such as PerfectIt on your file. Set it to your house rules.

Final tip. Read one page out loud. Your ear will catch stumbles your eyes miss. Tighten now, and your copy editor can focus on nuance, not cleanup.

Consistency and Style Governance

Readers forgive a typo. They do not forgive wobble. Style holds the line across pages, sections, and months of revisions. Make decisions once, write them down, and keep them.

Capitalization

Pick a system for headings. Then enforce it.

• Headline case. How to Edit a Novel.
• Sentence case. How to edit a novel.

Honorifics and titles.

• Capitalize when the title sits before a name. President Lincoln. Dr. Aisha Bello. Professor Kim Lee.
• Lowercase in running mention. the president, the doctor, the professor.

Branded terms need respect. iPhone, YouTube, eBay. Check official brand sites. Decide on Internet vs internet and stick with it.

Historical periods.

• Capitalize widely recognized periods. the Renaissance. the Great Depression.
• Lowercase general eras. medieval period. colonial era.

Job titles in running text.

• Before a name, many houses prefer caps. Editor in Chief R. Patel.
• After a name or on its own, lowercase. R. Patel, editor in chief. The editors met at noon.

Record edge cases in the style sheet.

Hyphenation systems

Hyphenation is a system, not a vibe. Set rules and repeat them.

Compound modifiers before a noun.

• Hyphenate to prevent misreading. small-business owner. high-risk patient. long-term plan.
• After the noun, drop the hyphen in most cases. The plan is long term.

Closed vs hyphenated compounds.

• Follow your dictionary. email, not e-mail, in US style. decision making or decision-making, pick one and apply it.

Prefixes and suffixes.

• Many prefixes close up. coauthor, preheat, nonprofit. Others need hyphens for clarity or double vowels. re-enter, co-op, pre-election.
• Suffix -wide often takes a hyphen with multiword bases. company-wide policy. campuswide or campus-wide, decide and note it.

Suspended hyphens.

• Shared endings or beginnings take a suspended mark. third- and fourth-grade classes. two- to three-year window.

Numbers and units

Choose one number scheme for the book.

• Chicago for nontechnical prose often spells out zero through one hundred. Many publishers prefer one through nine spelled out, 10 and above as numerals. Record your choice.
• Always use numerals for ages, percentages, dates, page numbers, and addresses. a 9-year-old. 15 percent or 15%. Decide on the percent style.

Dates and times.

• Date style. 5 January 2025 or January 5, 2025. Avoid mixing.
• Time style. 3 p.m. or 3 PM. No double zeros unless needed. 3 p.m., not 3:00 p.m.
• Time zones. ET, PT, GMT. Write zones in caps without periods, unless house rules differ.

Ranges use an en dash with no spaces in most book styles. pages 25–29. 1999–2007. 8–10 p.m.

Units and symbols.

• Keep a nonbreaking space between number and unit. 5 kg. 72 °F. Use a narrow space before ° if your software supports it.
• Currency. $25, €40, £100. For cross-currency work, ISO codes help. USD 25, AUD 40.

Titles and emphasis

Works.

• Italics for books, newspapers, magazines, films, albums. Beloved. The New York Times.
• Quotation marks for articles, essays, poems, songs, episodes, chapters. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”

Foreign words.

• Italicize on first use if not naturalized. A coup d’état altered the plan.
• Common loanwords in roman. cafe, taco, kindergartner. Log choices for consistency.

Definitions on first use.

• Pick a treatment and repeat it. The widget, defined as “our core component,” drives revenue. Or italics on first use. The widget is our core component.
• Emphasis with italics, sparingly. Overuse dulls effect.

Abbreviations and acronyms

First mention. Spell out, then give the short form in parentheses. World Health Organization (WHO). Afterward, WHO in running text.

Plural forms. Add s without an apostrophe. PDFs, SMEs, FAQs.

Periods or no periods.

• All caps usually take no periods. NATO, NASA, HIV.
• Traditional abbreviations keep periods. a.m., p.m., e.g., i.e., etc. Some houses prefer for example over e.g. Pick one.

Hyphenation with forms. pre-IPO, post-op. A unit like U.S. often stays punctuated in formal US work if used as an adjective. U.S. policy. If your house drops periods, US policy. Note the rule.

Align with your glossary. Every entry should match spelling, cap style, and whether it gets a definition.

Headings and lists

Headings need a plan.

• Level hierarchy. H1, H2, H3, with clear style for each.
• Capitalization. Headline case or sentence case, same across all heads.
• Length. Keep heads tight and parallel in tone across sections.

Lists thrive on parallel structure.

• Start each item with the same part of speech. Verb, verb, verb. Or noun, noun, noun.
• If items are full sentences, end with periods. If fragments, no period. Pick one approach per list type.
• Intro lines. Use a colon before a list when the lead-in reads as a complete sentence.

Callouts, sidebars, captions. Set fonts, caps, and punctuation rules. Example and Note labels should look the same every time.

Action

Keep a living style sheet. Share it with every revision. Add examples, not only rules. Lock decisions after chapter 3 to avoid backtracking and wasted sweeps.

Starter entries to steal:

• Headings. Sentence case across all levels.
• Serial comma. Yes.
• Numbers. Spell out one through nine, numerals from 10. Use numerals for ages and percentages. Percent sign in tables only.
• Dates. January 5, 2025. Times. 3 p.m., 10 a.m.
• Hyphenation. high-risk, long term after noun, decision-making closed in nouns.
• Brands. YouTube, LinkedIn, iPhone.
• Foreign words. Italic on first use if uncommon. cafe in roman.
• Acronyms. Spell out on first use, then acronym. No periods in all caps forms, periods in a.m. and p.m.

One last habit. When a new term, list style, or odd cap appears, pause and log it. Five seconds now saves five hours later.

Clarity, Concision, and Tone (Within Copy Editing Limits)

Copy editing trims noise. The voice stays yours. Aim for clean lines, sharp sense, and steady tone across chapters.

Trim wordiness

Cut furniture words. Readers skip them, so you should too.

• There are three reasons why we failed. Better: We failed for three reasons.
• In order to meet the deadline, we worked late. Better: To meet the deadline, we worked late.
• Due to the fact we were short staffed, progress slowed. Better: Because we were short staffed, progress slowed.
• The reason is because the test was flawed. Better: The test was flawed.

Kill stacked prepositions.

• off of the desk. Better: off the desk.
• outside of our hours. Better: outside our hours.

Fix nominalizations. Verbs do more work than nouns built from verbs.

• make a decision. Better: decide.
• provide an illustration. Better: illustrate.
• hold a discussion. Better: discuss.

Quick drill:

• Search for there is and there are. Replace half with direct subjects.
• Search for in order to. Replace with to.
• Search for of the strings. Thin them where meaning holds.

Precision over vagueness

Weak verb plus adverb hides action. Pick a stronger verb.

• walk slowly. Better: trudge. stroll. creep. Choose the right one for context.
• looked carefully. Better: inspected. examined.
• said softly. Better: whispered. murmured.

Nouns matter too.

• thing, issue, situation. Swap for the actual object or problem.

One-pass tune up:

• Highlight is, are, was, were. You do not need to ban them. Replace a third with active verbs where sense improves.

Ambiguity checks

Readers hate guessing games. Point each reference to one clear noun.

Pronouns.

• When Ana met Bea, she left early. Who left early? Fix with names. When Ana met Bea, Ana left early.

Only placement.

• I only edited chapter 1. Do you mean nothing else happened? Most writers mean scope, not exclusivity. I edited only chapter 1.

Demonstratives need a noun.

• This helps. Helps what? Add a label. This rule helps. This choice helps.

Long sentences lose the thread.

• The policy changed after the board met, which upset staff and led to calls for clarity, and this started a review of older procedures. Break it. The board met. The policy changed. Staff were upset. Calls for clarity followed. A review of older procedures began.

Readability

Flow earns trust. Readers like knowing where the piece is going.

• Link ideas with simple cues. So, but, yet, still. You do not need heavy transitions.
• Keep paragraph length varied. One short line resets attention. A longer one can build a case.
• Match register to audience. A science guide for teens reads lighter than a legal handbook. Pick a range and stay in it.
• Define insider terms at first mention. Then use the short form. Annual recurring revenue, ARR, stabilised in Q3.

Watch noun stacks.

• enterprise customer success strategy roadmap. Split and label. A roadmap for enterprise customer success strategy.

Flag broken rhythm on a read-aloud pass. Your ear catches clunks your eyes overlook.

Inclusivity and bias

Write with care for people on the page and people off it.

• Person-first where it fits. person with diabetes, not diabetic, unless a community prefers identity-first. Follow informed sources, not your hunch.
• Avoid default gender. Use they for a generic person if your style allows. Confirm singular they in your guide and then apply it without wobble.
• Job terms. firefighter over fireman. server over waitress. Choose neutral where possible.
• Order and emphasis. Do not other people. The team included Kamal, Rene, and Joan reads better than The team included Joan, Rene, and Kamal if sequence implies value with no reason.
• Slang and dialect. Keep flavor, not stereotype. Use a light touch and apply evenly for characters who share a background.

Log choices on the style sheet with sources. Consistency protects you and your readers.

Action

Make a crutch-word list. Hedges. Intensifiers. Empty openers. Your list will be personal. Mine once held quite, rather, a bit, there is, in order to. Run a global search and prune by half.

Do one chapter aloud. Circle any spot where you ran out of breath or stumbled. Fix stacky syntax, dull repeats, and unclear pointers.

Before sending to your copy editor, run three quick passes:

• Replace there is and there are where a direct subject works.
• Swap in strong verbs for one third of weak pairs.
• Clarify every only and every this with a noun.

Stop short of line rewriting. You are tuning, not recasting. Keep your voice. Lose the fog.

Accuracy, Attribution, and Risk Management

Accuracy protects you. Attribution protects your readers. Risk management protects the book.

I once watched a print run pulped over a single digit in a table. One wrong figure, then three chapters fell like dominoes. Painful, and preventable.

Fact-check, then check links and logic

Make a short list and work through it.

• Names. Spellings, accents, honorifics. Beyoncé, not Beyonce. Dr Patel on first mention if credentials matter in context.
• Dates and places. Cross-check with two sources. If your scene says Tuesday, 14 March 2023 in Rome, confirm Tuesday matched the date.
• Numbers. Totals, percentages, units. Recalculate any figure you cite. If 37 of 120 respondents agreed, write 30.8 percent, not 31.
• URLs. Click every link. Note the date you accessed the page. Save a PDF of key sources.
• Quotations. Quote marks, exact wording, ellipses, brackets. Keep page numbers or time stamps. If a speaker changed a name spelling over time, note your choice on the style sheet.
• Product specs. Model numbers, dimensions, version names. Screenshots help.
• Internal logic. If your protagonist is 27 in chapter 1, do not make them 25 in chapter 9. Keep a quick timeline.

Never rely on Wikipedia as a sole source. Treat it as a map, not the terrain. Follow the footnotes, then cite the original.

Mini-exercise:

• Run a search for every digit 0 to 9. Pause on each hit. Source, verify, mark as checked.
• Read photo captions and charts as if they were stand-alone. Fix any dangling reference or mismatch.

Citations that guide, not clutter

Pick a citation style and stick with it. Chicago for books, APA for social science, MLA for the humanities. Your house or client may set this in the brief. If not, choose early.

Normalize every reference.

• Names in a single order, surname first or given name first.
• Title case or sentence case, one rule across the book.
• Page ranges in a consistent form.
• Publisher and year in the same position each time.

Two quick examples:

Chicago note:

1. Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (New York, Random House, 2020), 114.

APA reference:

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House.

If you use notes, test cross-references. Every note number must match the note text. Every “see chapter 7” must land on a real chapter 7.

Permissions, or write a new line

Some material needs permission before publication. If you ignore this, you risk takedowns, delays, or fees.

What often needs permission:

• Lyrics and poetry, even short lines.
• Prose quotes above fair use limits, often more than a short excerpt.
• Epigraphs.
• Photos, charts, and screenshots you did not create.
• Long excerpts from interviews where the subject expected approval.

Safer paths:

• Paraphrase and cite.
• Use public domain material. Confirm status, then note source.
• Link to official pages rather than reproducing content.
• License stock images, then credit per license terms.

A simple request email:

Subject line: Permission request for excerpt from [Title]

Hello [Rights contact],

I hope you are well. I am requesting permission to use the following material in a book titled [Title], to be published by [Publisher] in [Month, Year].

Excerpt: “[first 30 words]…”

Approximate word count: [count]

Placement: [chapter or front matter]

Print run and formats: [print, ebook, audio]

Territory and language: [e.g., world English]

Credit line: “[preferred credit]”

Please advise terms and fees. Thank you.

[Your name]

[Contact]

Log every request, reply, and license in a tracker. Save PDFs of terms.

Legal and ethical flags to catch early

• Defamation. Statements of fact about living people carry risk. Stick to what you can support. Attribute and show sources. Opinions need context. Avoid innuendo.
• Medical, legal, and financial claims. Cite qualified sources. Use precise language. “According to the American Heart Association, X lowers Y in study Z.” Avoid implying a cure or guaranteed outcome.
• Trademarks. Capitalize names as the owner does. Do not turn protected names into generic verbs. Most books skip ® and ™, outside of legal copy.
• Fair use myths. Short does not equal safe. Nonprofit does not equal safe. Transformative use needs analysis, not vibes.
• Plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Quote when you use exact words. Credit ideas that are not common knowledge for your audience. If reusing your own published work, disclose and get alignment from your editor.

When stakes feel high, ask for a legal read. Editors help, lawyers decide.

Accessibility is part of accuracy

Describe what readers need to know, not pixel details no one needs.

Alt text:

• State the point of the image. “Line chart showing weekly sales rising from 10 to 60 between January and March.”
• Skip “image of.” The screen reader already announces an image.
• Keep it concise. One short sentence often serves.
• Mark decorative images as null alt.

Captions and transcripts:

• Give every figure a number and a clear caption.
• Provide transcripts for audio and video.
• Use consistent transliteration for names from non-Latin scripts. Record your choices on the style sheet. Include diacritics where they belong, as in México and São Paulo.

Accessibility choices help every reader, not only readers who rely on assistive tech.

Action

Prepare a sources packet for your copy editor.

• A bibliography of works cited, formatted in your chosen style.
• PDFs or screenshots of key web sources with access dates.
• A list of links in one document, each followed by a one-line note on use.
• Scans of title pages for books you cite often.
• Contact info for expert reviewers, if you engaged any.

Start a permissions tracker.

• Item description.
• Rights holder and contact.
• Date requested, status, terms, fee, credit line.
• File path to license.

Answer questions fast, especially for any claim no one can verify without you. A tight loop now saves weeks later.

Accuracy invites trust. Clear credit shows respect. Good risk habits keep your book on shelves, not in a lawyer’s inbox.

Continuity, Formatting, and Handoff to Proofreading

Copy editing ends with a clean handoff. No loose threads, no mystery files, no "I'll figure it out later" notes. The proofreader and typesetter need clarity, not puzzles.

Think of this stage as packing for someone else's trip. Everything labeled, nothing missing, instructions clear.

Continuity: the details that make or break believability

Readers notice inconsistencies faster than you think. A character's eye color changes, a timeline jumps backward, a company name shifts spelling. Small errors create big doubts.

Start with a continuity log during your first read. Note key details in a simple document:

Character tracker:

• Sarah Chen, 34, marketing director at Zenith Corp, divorced, two kids (Emma, 7; Josh, 11), drives a blue Honda Civic, lives in Portland.

Timeline:

• Chapter 1: Monday, 15 March 2023
• Chapter 3: Wednesday, 17 March (two days later)
• Chapter 5: Friday, 19 March (Sarah mentions "last week's meeting" — check this)

Settings:

• Zenith Corp: 47th floor, glass walls, coffee machine on east side
• Sarah's apartment: third floor, two bedrooms, balcony faces west

During copy editing, cross-check every mention against your log.

Common continuity slips:

• Ages that do not match birthdates or story timeline.
• Physical descriptions that change without explanation.
• Weather, seasons, or time zones that contradict earlier scenes.
• Company names, job titles, or addresses that vary in spelling.
• Point of view shifts mid-chapter without clear breaks.
• Verb tense wandering between past and present in narration.

Fix obvious errors. Query anything unclear. If Sarah drives a Honda in chapter 2 and a Toyota in chapter 8, flag it. The author decides whether she bought a car or you caught a mistake.

Cross-references: making the connections work

Every numbered element needs to match its callout. Every "see chapter 7" needs to land in the right place. Broken cross-references annoy readers and embarrass authors.

Run through your document:

• Figure and table numbers in order, with matching callouts in text.
• Chapter or section references that point to real destinations.
• Page numbers in a table of contents that align with headings.
• Footnote or endnote numbers in sequence without gaps or duplicates.
• Index markers that match terms and concepts in the text.
• Running heads and folios (page numbers) formatted correctly for the book's layout.

Example problem: "Figure 3.2 shows the quarterly results" appears on page 47, but Figure 3.2 sits on page 52. Either move the figure closer or adjust the callout to "Figure 3.2 (page 52) shows..."

If you are preparing an index brief for a professional indexer, include:

• Key terms and concepts to emphasize.
• Names to include or exclude.
• Preferred forms of terms that appear in multiple ways.
• Cross-reference structure and depth.

Front and back matter: the details that matter

These sections frame your book. Small errors here create bad first impressions.

Title page elements:

• Full title and subtitle, spelled and punctuated to match the cover.
• Author name as it should appear in catalogs and reviews.
• Publisher name and location.

Copyright page checklist:

• Copyright notice with correct year and holder.
• ISBN for each format (print, ebook, audio).
• Publisher contact information.
• Cataloging in Publication (CIP) data if applicable.
• Permissions acknowledgments for quoted material.
• Edition statement if not the first.

Dedication and acknowledgments:

• Names spelled correctly, including accents and titles.
• Consistent formatting for similar elements.
• Proper attribution for any quoted material.

Epigraphs:

• Accurate quotations with page numbers or line numbers.
• Proper attribution format.
• Permission secured if needed.

Glossary and appendices:

• Terms in alphabetical order.
• Consistent formatting for entries.
• Cross-references to main text accurate.

Bibliography:

• Consistent citation style throughout.
• Alphabetical order by author surname.
• Complete publication information.
• Matching entries for works cited in notes.

Formatting hygiene: the invisible structure

Good formatting disappears. Bad formatting distracts from your content. Clean up the invisible elements that typesetters and ebook converters rely on.

Heading styles:

• Applied consistently using your word processor's style menu, not manual formatting.
• Hierarchy clear and logical (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3).
• No extra line breaks above or below headings.

Spacing and breaks:

• Single space after periods, not double.
• Tab stops or paragraph indents, not multiple spaces.
• Page breaks or section breaks, not multiple returns.
• Scene breaks marked consistently, often with # or ***.

Special characters and typography:

• Smart quotes ("curly") not straight quotes.
• Em dashes (—) not double hyphens (--).
• En dashes (–) for ranges and minus signs.
• Nonbreaking spaces between numbers and units (25 kg, $47 million).
• Proper symbols for degrees (°), copyright (©), trademark (™).

Image and media credits:

• Consistent format and placement.
• Complete source information.
• Permission tracking numbers if applicable.

Run a final cleanup pass:

• Search for double spaces and replace with single spaces.
• Find spaced em dashes ( — ) and remove the spaces.
• Look for stray tabs and manual line breaks.
• Check for consistent paragraph indents.

The handoff: what your team needs to succeed

Deliver a complete package. Missing pieces create delays and confusion.

Essential files:

1. Tracked-changes document showing all edits and comments.
2. Clean copy with all accepted changes and resolved comments.
3. Query list summarizing unresolved questions for the author.
4. Updated style sheet with all decisions documented.

The style sheet should include:

• Spelling preferences and proper noun forms.
• Capitalization rules for titles, brands, and terms.
• Hyphenation decisions for compound words.
• Number and date formatting.
• Abbreviation and acronym handling.
• Special formatting notes for the typesetter.

Query list format:

• Page or chapter reference.
• Original text.
• Suggested change or question.
• Reason for the query.

Example query: "Chapter 5, page 47: 'The meeting was on Thursday, March 14th.' March 14, 2023 was a Tuesday, not Thursday. Please confirm the correct day or date."

File naming convention:

• Use project name, section, and version number.
• Include date for clarity.
• Examples: "SmithNovel_FullMS_CopyEdit_2024-01-15.docx" and "SmithNovel_StyleSheet_2024-01-15.docx"

Action: freeze and archive

After copy editing, freeze the content. No more revisions except to resolve queries. Late changes introduce new errors and force expensive corrections in typeset proofs.

Export a 'typesetter-ready' file:

• Clean document with all changes accepted.
• Styles applied consistently.
• Images and captions in final form.
• Cross-references verified.
• Special characters and spacing correct.

Archive previous versions in a dated folder. Label the final file clearly. If you need to backtrack, you have options. If you move forward, you move with confidence.

Copy editing ends where production begins. Your clean handoff makes everything that follows smoother, faster, and less prone to error. The proofreader thanks you. The typesetter thanks you. The reader never knows you existed, which means you did your job perfectly.

Frequently Asked Questions

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