John Firth Proofreader & Copy Editor

DEVELOPMENT EDITING

Development editing is a high-level analysis of your text to identify and deal with any problems in style, organisation and structure. Points of detail, spelling, grammar and so forth are normally covered in a separate copy editing stage; it is possible, but usually a bad idea, to try to combine these stages.

I can analyse how clearly or logically an outline covers the planned work, and/or help prepare one. If the author has already prepared a first draft of the work I can look at how well key elements are developed—narratives, time-lines, contexts or characters in fiction, arguments or organisation of material in non-fiction—and help the author decide what to fix and what to leave (if there would be too much knock-on effect, or it would be too difficult to research or to explain, and so on).

Some clients require additional writing or rewriting of sections of larger works, restructuring, organisation of materials or permissions to be obtained. I might be able to help: see my list of Areas of Specialisation on the Services page.

 

Professional standards

I am an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP). As such, I am bound by the Society's Code of Practice.

To see my credentials as an editor, download my CV in PDF format.



© 2018 John Firth