Editing and proofreading

These services correct and polish your documents, making them ready to publish, submit or use.

Capire’s structural editing, copyediting and proofreading services will give you assurance that your documents will achieve their purpose, suit their audience and be free of errors.

Editing and proofreading are different processes, but the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. You may be more familiar with the term “proofreading”, but the service you need may be copyediting. We help you work out which service is right for you.

You can use our editing service at any stage during the writing process, although involving us early can save you time and money. If you’re not sure whether editing will help you, read our article Do you need an editor?

Structural editing

Capire’s structural editing service is suited to documents at the first-draft stage. We check that your document is structured logically, makes sense and achieves its purpose. Our edited version of your draft will include or suggest changes that:

• organise your content logically
• use headings and subheadings that will help readers navigate the document
• make your content consistent with your document’s purpose and objectives
• remove repetition or add missing information
• ensure your document meets any given requirements, such as a template or criteria for a funding proposal
• present information in ways that are easier to understand, such as using tables or diagrams.

If your document contains charts, we can advise you on which types of charts are most effective for your data; help you identify the main messages to highlight in your charts; and create effective charts that you can insert into your documents. Find out more about our data visualisation service.

We provide you with a ‘clean’ version of your edited document and a ‘tracked-changes’ version, so you have the option to review the changes we’ve made. Both versions contain comments for you to work through before we proceed to copyedit the document.

Copyediting

Capire’s copyediting service is suited to documents at the final-draft stage. This service checks your document line by line. Our edited version of your draft will include changes that:

• clarify the meaning of each sentence and paragraph
• make the writing style and tone consistent throughout the document
• ensure your content is suitable for what you want to achieve
• ensure the style, tone and content is suitable for your readers
• apply style choices consistently
• present figures, tables and captions accurately and consistently
• reference correctly any facts and quotations you’ve used
• correct grammar, spelling and punctuation.

If your document contains charts, we can advise you on which types of charts are most effective for your data; help you identify the main messages to highlight in your charts; and create effective charts that you can insert into your documents. Find out more about our data visualisation service.

We provide you with a ‘clean’ version of your copyedited document and a ‘tracked-changes’ version, so you have the option to review the changes we’ve made. Both versions contain comments for you to work through before you finalise the document for proofreading.

If you make a lot of changes to the document after it has been copyedited, we recommend a second copyedit. This will usually be much quicker (and cheaper) than the first copyedit.

Find out how Capire’s copyediting service helped make software instructions quick and easy for healthcare professionals to use.

Proofreading

Capire’s proofreading service offers a final check of your document before you publish or submit it. This service suits documents that have already been professionally copyedited. It gives you assurance that any new errors, introduced after copyediting, have been picked up.

Our proofreading service is a word-by-word check of every aspect of your document. It focuses on:

• spelling, grammar and punctuation
• consistency
• appearance
• accuracy
• referencing.

We provide you with a ‘clean’ version of your proofread document and a ‘tracked-changes’ version, so you have the option to review the changes we’ve made.

If you want to check your own proofreading skills, download our free proofreading checklist.

Stylesheets

When we work on a writing or editing project, we always develop a style sheet. This is a list of style preferences that are used in the document. The style sheet draws from your organisation’s own style guide (if you have one) and is a useful tool that your organisation or team can continue to develop and use after the project.

You can create your own style sheet by downloading our free template.

Formatting

If you are not using a designer, we can format your document for you. Formatting includes consistently applying an agreed set of styles to every aspect of a document (headings, paragraphs, tables, captions, references and so on) in MS Word.

 

Capire is a leading New Zealand writing consultancy for governments, NGOs and international development agencies. We help organisations transform their complexity into plain English. Find out more about how we can help your organisation or sign up for our newsletter to get more tips to improve your writing.