Friday, November 30, 2007

Four basic steps of Copyediting

What will be your reaction, if you find that the text you are reading is full of grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and does not convey the message properly? Obiviously, you will close that page though it contains important message. Similarly, a reader will close your website if he finds that the text lacks proof reading. Copyediting of a content is not just checking grammer mistakes, spellings errors and punctuation but it also involves checking consistency in visual designs, testing links and proof reading. Now, I will tell you four fundamental steps of copyediting. These are as follows:

Looking the content from reader’s point of view – The best way to do copyediting is to read copy from reader’s point of view. Read from start to finsih without making any correction because this is how a reader going to read the story.

Looking for answers – While copyediting the text keep one thing in mind that the story should be complete and answers all the questions of the reader. The story should be based on the important facts.

Check for grammatical errors and spellings – The next step comes of checking the grammatical and spelling mistakes. In this step attention should be given to subject-verb agreement, sentence fragments and consistency in writing style.

Checking punctuation – After checking grammatical and spelling mistakes, the next step is of checking the punctuation. This is the most common mistake people tend to make.

For more information on copyediting visit - http://www.contentmantra.com/copy_editing.htm

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