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Do you understand copy editing and proofreading?
INFORMATION FOR ALL AUTHORS
YOUR SCIENTIFIC MANUSCRIPTS
ACADEMIC ARTICLES
PUBLISHED IN JOURNALS & MAGAZINES
Is there a difference?
What is Copy Editing? What is Proofreading?
"Copy Editing" Explained
"Proofreading" Explained
Manuscripts & Articles Published
This Page is an Introduction
to the Correction of a Scientific or Academic Paper
There are Three Separate Stages of Correction in any given Document or Manuscript
1. Review
The evaluator does not actually correct them.
It is a quality control measure in order to ascertain the quality of the work.
Often, if the manuscript's text is large, the review may only be conducted on a small sample
of the text, especially if the author/client is well know to the proofreading company.
In the case of PRS Proofreading Services, this work would be conducted by the
PRS Evaluation Team, in order to produce a Formal Quotation.
The copy editor is your necessary partner in a publication.
A copy editor checks for and corrects errors in grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation.
People often refer to all of the stages of revision as “editing”,
but "copy editing" is what is performed after the reviewing process is completed.
It is the next stage in the process of producing the finished finalised paper.
Careful copy editing takes time - and it is an in-depth process.
It is critical for a polished, well written paper.
It cannot be rushed and hurried, regardless of what some companies on the Internet claim.
PRS Proofreading Services employs 2 different copy editors at this stage.
The first copy editor takes care of "The 1st Draft", which the author/client usually receives.
The second copy editor takes care of "The 2nd Draft", which is not usually sent to
the author/client, unless it is deemed to be critically important.
This 2nd stage corrects any errors that may have been missed previously.
This '2nd copy editing' is very pertinent, since in a manuscript with many errors,
it is often very difficult to spot all of the mistakes.
This is because we are all humans - no matter how qualified we may be,
for it is sometimes, very confusing on the eye and on the brain
***************************
(Important, count them ONLY ONCE: do not go back and count them again)
“Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.”
This is the answer that most people give.
Or more accurately, this is the answer that most native speakers give.
If you still only see three, then check out the three times the word ‘of’ appears,
they also have the letter ‘f’.
When a proofreader proofreads text, they admit to having a blind spot.
They know what the text is supposed to say, but their brain does a great job of auto-correcting.
They see what is supposed to be there, instead of what is really there.
What this means is that if you give this test to someone who does not speak English,
they will most likely get the correct answer of six, because for them,
it really is a pattern-matching exercise.
The astonishing conclusion is that the better you are at English,
the more likely you are to get the wrong answer. Astounding!
The letter ‘f’ usually has a hard sound, like ‘found’ or 'from', but not a soft sound,
like the word ‘of’ - where the 'f' sounds more like a ‘v’).
The first two words in the sentence (finished files), reinforce this incorrect subconscious thinking,
When we read the test sentence above,
because the word ‘of’ doesn’t sound like it has an ‘f’ in it, we don’t count it!
The other point is that when we process and read the English language,
we do not give the same importance to every word. We tend to skip the little words,
such as ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘of’, ‘at’, and so forth, while giving most of our attention to the nouns and verbs.
In other words, when we read the test sentence above, we do not really read the three
instances of the word ‘of’ – we just blur past them.
Proofreading comes next and this is the last stage.
It consists of a final sweep through the paper, with an eye looking out for any more errors.
Proofreaders do not suggest major changes to the text, rather,
they look for minor text and formatting errors.
Proofreading is the process of examining the final draft of a document or text,
after it has been copy edited and amended.
This is in order to ensure that there are absolutely no errors.
A proofreader will review for spelling errors, punctuation errors, typos,
or for the incorrect use of English
(in other words, ensuring that the paper is written in American English or British English).
The proofreader will then confirm that the material is ready for publication.
Copy editing and proofreading are two separate tasks, although the terms are sometimes
used interchangeably by people who do not know the difference.
On highly technical and scientific papers,
PRS will again employ 2 proofreaders at this end stage,
in order to be completely satisfied that all of the revisions are perfectly correct.
we are going to take a look at these 2 words
"Copy Editing" and "Proofreading"
Is there a difference?
Do these two words mean the same thing?
These are two questions that PRS hears almost every day
So below are some brief explanations
of what these two words actually mean,
together with a Copy Editing & Proofreading Example
upon some Client's Original Text
UNDERSTANDING
COPY EDITING & PROOFREADING
What do these words really mean?
Do they have the same meaning?
"Copy Editing" takes place first of all
"Proofreading" happens in the final stages of the revision
Copy Editing (also written as copy-editing or copyediting)
is the work that an editor does
in order to improve the formatting, the style, and
the accuracy of the text.
Unlike general editing, copy editing does not
involve changing the substance of the text.
It adheres to the original intended meaning.
Copy refers to written text or
typewritten text,
intended for typesetting, printing, or for publication.
Copy Editing is always done before Proofreading,
which is the last step in the editorial cycle.
"The 5 C’s" summarise the copy editor's job: -
Make the copy clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent.
Copy Editors should “Make it say what it means, and mean what it says”.
Typically, Copy Editing involves correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation,
terminology and jargon, timelines and semantics (meanings);
always ensuring that the script adheres
to the author's or the publisher's meaningful style.
Often, Copy Editors are also responsible for adding any "display copy",
such as headlines, standardised headers and footers,
together with photo and logo captions.
With PRS Proofreading Services, the bulk of Copy Editing
involves the correction of Scientific Manuscripts, or Academic Articles, or Thesis.
Proofreading (also written as proof-reading or proof reading)
means reading a proof copy of a text
in order to detect and correct any errors, whatever they might be.
A proof copy is a manuscript that has been typeset after the copy editing.
Proof typescripts often contain typographical errors that are introduced by
mistyping (hence the word typo to refer to misplaced, missing or incorrect characters).
Proofreading consists of
reviewing any text,
either a hard copy on paper, or an electronic copy on a
computer,
and checking for typos and formatting and grammar errors,
together with clear meanings and understandings.
The Copy Edited Version (b)
The Final Proofread Version (c)
And The Text - Ready for the Journal (d)
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EXAMPLE
Ahmed, et al. (2018) performed molecular dynamics, in order to investigate the interactions between glyphosate and mineral surfaces. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, these were the first molecular dynamic simulations for exploring the binding mechanisms of glyphosate with goethite surfaces in the presence of water.
VERY OFTEN
THIS IS MOST CONFUSING
TO MANY PEOPLE
COME BACK TO THIS PAGE SOON - THERE WILL BE MORE INFORMATION
ABOUT COPY EDITING & PROOFREADING
AND GETTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT READY FOR A PUBLICATION
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PROOFREADING MANUSCRIPTS FOR SCIENTIFIC AUTHORS
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