Which editing service does my document need?

What are the different services, in plain terms?

Four names cover almost everything, and each describes a different depth of intervention. Editors Canada, whose definitions are used across the profession, sets them out in order.

Structural editing is assessing and shaping draft material to improve its organization and content, which can mean reordering, cutting, expanding, or rewriting sections.¹ Stylistic editing, also called line editing, is editing to clarify meaning, ensure coherence and flow, and refine the language.¹ Copy editing is editing to ensure correctness, accuracy, consistency, and completeness, and it produces the style sheet a document is checked against.¹

Proofreading is the last of the four and the narrowest. It examines material after layout or in its final format, correcting errors in textual and visual elements and checking that the document matches its design.¹

Which one does my document need?

The answer follows from what is still open. A document whose structure could still change needs the structural pass. One whose content is settled but whose sentences are heavy needs the stylistic pass. One that is finished and needs to be correct and consistent needs a copyedit.

The commonest mistake is asking for a proofread on a document that has never been edited. A proofread leaves a badly organized document correctly punctuated, and Editors Canada says directly that proofreading is not a substitute for editing.¹

An editor reading a sample will normally propose a level rather than accept the one named in the request. That is not an upsell where it comes with reasons attached, and a reader can judge the reasons.

What is the difference between editing and rewriting?

Editing works on what is there. Rewriting produces new text, and the moment an editor is writing rather than correcting, the work has changed category and so has the price.

The EFA's 2026 rate chart shows the size of that step. Copyediting of business and marketing material appears at 3.0 to 4.0 cents a word, while ghostwriting the same kind of material runs from 50 cents to a dollar a word.² That is more than a tenfold difference for work on the same page.

Between the two sits substantive editing, where an editor reorganizes and reshapes without originating the argument. Naming which of the three you want, before quoting, is among the most useful things a client can do.

The distinction also decides who is responsible for what the document claims. Text an editor wrote is text the client still has to check, because the editor was not in the room where the facts were established.

Do I need a writer instead of an editor?

Where the document does not exist yet, yes. Editors work on drafts, and a brief is not a draft.

A useful test is whether you could hand somebody the material and have them produce a document from it. If the content exists in notes, slides, a transcript, or somebody's head, that is a writing job. If it exists in sentences you are unhappy with, that is an editing job.

Where an editor takes on a document that turns out to need writing, both sides usually end up disappointed. It is worth saying at the start that the draft is rough, because a rough draft is a normal thing for an editor to be sent and a nonexistent one is not.

Can one editor do all of it?

Many can, and the professional bodies still treat the levels as distinct competences. Editors Canada certifies each separately, with credentials for proofreading, copy editing, stylistic editing, and structural editing, plus a Certified Professional Editor credential for anyone who passes all four exams.³

Combining passes on one document is normal. What changes is that one reader reading twice is not the same as two readers, and an editor who has already decided about a sentence rarely reverses that decision a month later.

For a document that matters, the final read is the one worth giving to somebody new. That is why proofreading exists as a separate stage rather than as the tail end of a copyedit.

On a short document the distinction is often not worth the cost of a second person. On a long one, or one that will be printed in quantity, it usually is.

What is a style sheet, and do I get one?

A style sheet is the written record of the decisions a document has made. Preferred spellings, hyphenation, capitalization, the treatment of numbers and dates, and the names and titles used all sit on it. Producing one is part of copy editing in both the Canadian and American definitions of the work.¹⁴

Its value outlasts the job. An organization that keeps the style sheet from one document has the beginning of a house style, and the next document does not have to be argued about from nothing.

It is worth naming in the quote rather than assuming. Naming it costs nothing, and it is the item clients most often discover they wanted after the work is finished. An organization commissioning more than one document should ask for it every time.

My document has to meet a rule. Does that change the editing?

It changes what the editor is checking against. Where a document is governed by an external requirement, that requirement outranks any style manual and often outranks the client's preference.

Federal agency communications are the clearest case. The Plain Writing Act of 2010 is Public Law 111-274, approved October 13, 2010. It requires covered agency documents to use plain writing, which it defines as writing that is clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience.⁵

Securities filings are another. The Securities and Exchange Commission's rule on the presentation of information in prospectuses asks for clear, concise sections, paragraphs, and sentences, and for descriptive headings. It also tells filers to avoid legal and highly technical business terminology.⁶ Where a rule like that applies, supplying it to the editor at the start is what makes the edit useful.

What if I do not know what I need?

Three answers get further than a service name: what the document is for, who reads it, and what seems wrong with it. A sample of ten pages alongside them is enough for an editor to work with.

An editor can read ten pages and tell you which level the document needs and roughly what it would cost. That reading is the ordinary first step of a quote rather than a separate purchase.

We do not tell a client what their document should say, and we do not make the professional judgments inside it. What we can say is what the pages are doing, where a reader is likely to lose the thread, and which of the four services addresses it. Every document a client sends us is treated in confidence.