Editorial terms
Terms such as 'proofreading' and 'copy-editing' can mean different things to different people. Click on the words below to bring up a brief description of what they mean to a professional in the field. The definitions are not always black and white: there are always grey areas in between. And they do not pretend to be comprehensive: whole books have been written about copy-editing and proofreading and most of the other terms on the list! But at the very least this page demonstrates the wide variety of work that can be done by proofreaders, copy-editors, indexers, translators...