Article Vault

These articles cover the parts of writing and editing that have published answers: what a press asks for, what a style manual settles, what a journal requires before it will read a submission, and what an editor may and may not do. Every checkable claim carries a source, and where nobody has published an answer, the article says so.

Manuscripts and books

What publishers ask for, in what order, and how a book is assembled before anyone reads the prose.

How to Structure Your Manuscript for Maximum Impact The proposal, the order of the parts, and what has to be complete before a press begins.
Common Editing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them The costly errors are about order and scope, not about commas.
What an Index Is, Who Builds It, and When The single exception to every press rule about submitting a complete manuscript.
Self-Publishing: Every Stage a Publisher Would Have Paid For The stages are published. Only the person scheduling them is missing.
Copyright Registration Before Publication, and What It Buys Three months, one effective date, and two remedies that depend on both.
How Long a Book Should Be, Who Decides It, and What Happens When It Runs Over The published boundaries, the unpublished conventions, and the two different problems.
What an Editorial Letter Actually Says, and How to Read One Three kinds of finding, and why treating them all as instructions costs a draft.
Why a Memoir Needs a Fact-Check and a Novel Does Not The warranty an author signs, and the three inventories an editor can build against it.

Academic and student work

What an institution permits, what a committee checks, and where a proofreader's authority ends.

Proofreading Tips for Academic Papers Who decides what a proofreader may touch, and how that permission is recorded.
What Your University Actually Permits an Editor to Do to Your Dissertation The rules are local, published, and not the same at any two institutions.
Authorship, Contributorship, and Who Decides A threshold question and a description, doing two different jobs.
Reporting Checklists, and What a Journal Requires Before Review The page-number column is a cross-reference table, and that is where the errors are.
Titles and Abstracts, and the Two Things a Database Indexes Published character and word limits, and the four places an abstract drifts.
What a Journal Means by Data Availability A paragraph written last, with a post-publication remedy attached.
Turning a Dissertation into a Book, and What a Press Will Ask You to Remove What a press asks authors to remove, and why the revision is structural first.
Where Language Editing Ends and Authorship Begins Four criteria, why editing meets none of them, and what has to be recorded instead.

Craft and style

Sentences, dialogue, and clarity, and where the published conventions end and a decision begins.

Polishing Dialogue in Fiction Where the published conventions govern, and where the author decides.
Improving Clarity and Flow in Nonfiction Writing Two federal definitions of clear writing, and what they make checkable.
Which Style Manual to Use, and What Actually Changes If You Pick the Other One Six places the manuals disagree, and who chooses between them.
Capitalization: Job Titles, Departments, and Product Names Invisible one at a time, obvious in aggregate, and settled by a style sheet.
Conscious Language, and What the Standard Actually Asks Identify and suggest. Neither verb is impose.
Point of View, Tense, and the Two Questions an Editor Cannot Answer for You What can be shown on the page, and what only the novelist can settle.
What a Style Sheet Is, and Why to Ask for It The one thing to ask for that makes the next manuscript cheaper.
The Difference Between a Line Edit and a Copyedit, Shown on One Paragraph The same sentence, worked on by both, and what each one is allowed to touch.

Accuracy and correctness

Grammar, punctuation, and the errors that survive every automated check.

Grammar and Punctuation Checklist What a checklist can settle, and what it cannot.
Common Typos and How to Catch Them Why a spell checker cannot see the errors that matter most.
Quotation Marks, and When You May Change Someone's Words One general rule, one exception with a reason, and the narrowest authority in the trade.
Translated Documents, and the Version That Governs Where editing a translation stops being editing.
Numbers, Units, and the Errors That Survive Every Read The pass that is dull, mechanical, and the only one that finds these.
Hyphens, Compounds, and the Places They Change Meaning Three cases decided by the sentence, and the rest decided by the manual.
Why a Reference List Is the Cheapest Place to Lose a Reader's Trust The one pass that finds errors a reading never will.
Why Your Word Processor's Grammar Checker Disagrees With Your Publisher The software was never the authority. It was standing in for one.

Business and regulated documents

Documents whose wording, order, and format are set by a regulator rather than by a house style.

Plain English Is a Legal Requirement in American Finance, and This Is the Exact List Six requirements, three covered sections, and a rule in force since 1998.
A Product Label Is a Regulated Document, and Editing One Is Not Copywriting Fixed wording, fixed order, fixed type size, and what is left to edit.
What a Nonprofit May Publish, and the Line the Tax Code Draws Two restrictions with two different tests, one of them absolute.
Energy Filings, and What a Signature Certifies One person attests to a document a dozen people wrote.
Mining and Resource Disclosure: Reports Written for Regulators and Investors Where a readability edit becomes a change to a regulated claim.
Recall Notices, and What Happens When a Regulator Writes Your Sentences Locked wording, a specified order, and six documents that have to agree.
Construction Submittals, RFIs, and the Paper Trail That Settles a Dispute The record decides who pays for a change, and the clauses say what a record is.
An Employee Handbook Read the Way an Attorney Reads It Four faults an editor finds without giving a legal opinion.
Nonprofit Program Reports Read by Three Audiences at Once Count something, say what it was for, label the estimates, then be clear.
Menus, Allergen Statements, and the Sentence That Has to Be Exact Three kinds of text on one page, each edited under a different rule.
Engineering Reports That an Expert Witness Will Have to Defend What a document review finds that a technical review cannot.
Regulatory Submissions Fail on Format More Often Than on Science Sixty days, a required order, and a comprehensive index that has to match.
Insurance Policy Wording and the Doctrine That Punishes the Drafter Four faults that create uncertainty, all checkable without a coverage opinion.
Real Estate Listings, Fair Housing Language, and the Words That Are Not Allowed The famous word list stopped being a regulation thirty years ago.
Writing a Procedure Someone Can Follow at Two in the Morning Four faults that make a procedure unusable, all visible on the page.
What the FTC Considers a Claim, and How Marketing Copy Becomes One by Accident Three ways ordinary copy becomes a regulated claim.

Preparing to submit

The last pass before a manuscript goes to a journal, a press, a committee, or a competition.

Final Proofreading Before Submission The final pass is measured against someone else's published requirements.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure, and What Counts Perception is the standard, and disclosure is not an admission.
Trial Registration and Data Sharing, and the Sentences a Journal Looks For A documentary deadline that fell before the document existed.
Grant Applications and the Instructions Nobody Reads Twice The most useful document in an application is one the funder never sees.
Preprints, Embargoes, and What You Can Post Before Publication Two documents govern most cases, and neither is uniform.
What a Graduate School Checks Before Anyone Reads the Argument Every requirement is a fact about the file rather than a judgment about the work.
Blind Submission, and the Metadata That Gives You Away Four places identity survives a careful edit, three of them checkable.
What a Government Solicitation Means by Responsive The trace matters more than the prose, and the regulation says why.

What editing costs

Published rates, what each level of work buys, and how a quotation is put together.

Tracked Changes, Queries, and How to Answer an Editor Queries first, reject rather than delete, and keep three files.
What a Manuscript Assessment Is, and When It Is Cheaper Than an Edit A report rather than an edited file, and why a sample cannot stand in for it.
Editing Qualifications in North America, and What Each One Certifies What a designation certifies, what it cannot, and the checks that cost nothing.
Rush Work: What It Costs, and What It Cannot Buy What a shorter schedule buys, what it cannot, and what quietly gets dropped.
The Sample Edit: What It Proves, What It Cannot, and What to Send What a sample can settle, and the question it cannot answer.
How to Read an Editing Quote, and the Five Things It Should Say Five questions that make two quotations comparable.
What Editing Costs in the United States, by Level, by the Word, and by the Hour The published rates, level by level, and how to read them.

EditFast charges by the word: 3¢ to proofread, 3.5¢ for a light edit, 4¢ for a medium edit and 5¢ for a heavy edit, with a $50 minimum. What each level covers and what a full manuscript costs, or estimate your own.

Looking for a specific answer instead? Questions, answered groups the common ones by who is asking.