THE ROLE AND SCOPE OF EDITING

Very few people can immediately write a lucid and well-expressed piece of work. In most cases, the final draft is smoothed and polished so that others can readily understand the writer’s message. It is the editor’s role to improve the quality of the writing, whether their own or someone else’s work. The scope of editing ranges from self-editing, where the writer examines their writings and improves it as best they can, to professional editing, where an expert is employed by a publishing company to improve the quality of a piece of writing prior to publication.
There are many other facets of commercial publishing that require the skills of professional editors. These include commissioning publications; reviewing manuscripts; overseeing manuscripts through the production process; liaising with writers, publishers, printers and agents; writing blurbs, captions and press releases; and researching and organizing pictures. In smaller organizations the editor may also be responsible for the design and publication of documents, newsletters, reports, magazines and books using desktop publishing software and equipment.

Editing involves several stages, which will be examined in detail during this course. In summary, they are:
1. Reviewing the manuscript
2. Structural (substantive) editing
3. Copy editing
4. Proof reading
5. Checking proofs.