What an edit gives you back

What exactly do I get back, and in what form?

Three things are common, and which of them arrive depends on the level bought. A marked-up manuscript comes back from any pass that touches the text. A style sheet comes back from a copyedit, because Editors Canada lists the development of style sheets among the tasks copy editing covers.¹ A written assessment comes back from developmental work, which the EFA describes as producing a manuscript evaluation or an editorial letter setting out large-scale issues.²

A proofread produces the fewest objects. It examines material after layout, and what it returns is a list of corrections marked against proofs rather than a revised manuscript.¹

None of this is universal, and that is exactly why it belongs in the quote. An author who assumes a letter is included in a copyedit, and an editor who assumed it was not, have both behaved reasonably and will still be arguing at the end.

Will the changes be tracked, and can I reject them?

Tracked changes are the normal arrangement for manuscript editing. The Chicago Manual of Style treats the mechanics of electronic editing as a topic in its own right, alongside the older business of editing on paper.³ A tracked file lets an author see every alteration and accept or reject each one.

Rejecting is the author's right and it should not need to be exercised carefully. An editor who marks a change is proposing it, and a proposal declined is not a failure of the pass.

What deserves attention is the volume. A file with 4,000 tracked changes is unreadable if the author intends to consider each one, which is why heavy passes are often returned in two forms: one showing the changes and one clean. Where that matters to an author, it is worth asking for at the start rather than after delivery.

Will I get a style sheet?

From a copyedit, ordinarily yes. Editors Canada includes developing style sheets in its definition of copy editing, so a copyedit that produces none has omitted a listed task.¹ The EFA is equally direct, describing copyeditors as preparing the style sheets that guide consistency and accuracy.²

A style sheet records the decisions a particular book has made. Preferred spellings, hyphenation, capitalization, the handling of numbers and dates, and the names and details of people and places all live on it. It is a record of what was decided rather than an argument for any of it.

Its value outlives the edit. An author revising after a copyedit, writing a sequel, or handing the book to a proofreader is handing over the record along with it. Without one, the next reader has to reconstruct the decisions by inspection and will get some of them wrong.

Is the style sheet something the author is entitled to?

Entitlement depends on the agreement rather than on a rule, and no professional body we consulted states that the author owns it by default. What is documented is that producing one is part of the work, in both the Canadian and American definitions of copy editing.¹²

The practical position is that an editor has little reason to withhold it and an author has several reasons to want it. It costs nothing to name in the quote, and naming it removes the question.

Where a book is going to a publisher, the style sheet travels with the manuscript and the publisher's own production staff will use it. Where a book is being self-published, the author is the production department and needs it more, not less.

Will I get a letter, or only marks on the manuscript?

The letter belongs to developmental work. The EFA describes developmental editors as dealing with content, organization, and genre considerations. It also describes them as providing a manuscript evaluation or an editorial letter outlining large-scale issues.² A copyedit is not defined as producing either.

Many copyeditors write a short covering note anyway, listing global decisions, recurring patterns, and anything the author should look at before accepting changes. That is a courtesy rather than a standard, and it varies.

The distinction that matters is between a letter and a summary. A letter argues a case about the book. A summary reports what was done to the text. An author expecting the first and receiving the second has not been short-changed, but has bought a different thing than they thought.

What file format, and does the software matter?

Word processor files with tracked changes are the working standard for manuscript editing, and Chicago treats preparing electronic manuscript files as a distinct stage of an author's responsibilities.³ Most editorial work is done in a format that supports comments and revision marks.

Formats that do not support them create real problems. A PDF can be commented on but not edited in place, which is right for proofs and wrong for a copyedit. A shared online document creates a single live copy, which suits collaboration and removes the ability to compare versions later.

The format also affects what survives. Styles applied properly in a word processor carry heading levels through to typesetting, while formatting applied by hand does not, and rebuilding it later is work somebody pays for.

What does the editor need from me before starting?

A complete file, a word count including apparatus, and answers to the convention questions. Four further things save the most time. They are a list of preferred spellings and invented words, a note of anything that must not be touched, the style manual or house style if one applies, and the deadline actually driving the schedule.

None of that takes an author long to assemble. Each item removes a round of email later, and the deadline item removes the worst of them, because a schedule built on the wrong date has to be rebuilt.

Where a manuscript has been edited before, saying so matters more than it sounds. Supplying the previous style sheet prevents a second editor undoing decisions the first one made deliberately.

Where the book has a publisher, that publisher's specifications outrank everything else. Supplying them at the start avoids a second pass whose only purpose is to conform the text to rules it could have followed the first time.

Who has the final say on a disputed change?

The author, on anything that reaches the page. An editor proposes, an author disposes, and no professional standard we found reverses that. Editors Canada's Professional Editorial Standards describe knowledge, skills, and practices, and they do not give an editor authority over an author's text.⁴

The exception is not really an exception. Where a publisher's house style applies, the disagreement is between the author and the publisher, and the editor is applying somebody else's decision rather than making one.

What an editor owes on a disputed point is the reason for it. A change explained is one an author can accept, reject, or apply to the rest of the book themselves. A change made silently that the author dislikes teaches nobody anything.

Disputes that recur are worth settling once. Where an author overrules the same kind of change three times, the decision belongs on the style sheet and the queries should stop.

Should an editor fix silently or query every change?

Neither extreme works, and the boundary between them is the thing to settle before the pass. Querying every comma produces a file nobody can read. Fixing everything silently means an author accepts changes they never saw.

The usual arrangement is that mechanical corrections are made silently and anything that could alter meaning, voice, or an authorial choice is queried. That leaves a judgment about which is which, and the judgment gets easier once an editor knows how much intervention the author wants.

Two habits keep the volume down. Recurring decisions are stated once on the style sheet rather than queried forty times, and patterns are reported globally rather than marked at every instance.

An author can shift the setting deliberately. Asking for more queries suits a first book, where the reasoning is worth having, and asking for fewer suits an author who has done this before and wants the file back clean.

Do I want the editor to fix something, or to explain it so I can?

Both are legitimate purchases and they cost differently. Having a fault fixed is faster. Having it explained means the author can apply the reasoning to the next chapter, the next revision, and the next book.

Authors who intend to keep writing tend to get more from explanation, and authors on a deadline tend to get more from repair. Nothing prevents a mixed arrangement, where one category of problem is fixed and another is explained and left.

Saying which is wanted, in advance, changes the shape of the returned file more than almost any other instruction an author can give. Every document a client sends us is treated in confidence, along with whatever the author says about how they want it handled.