Proofreading, editing and rewriting:
What's the difference?
Some clients come to us unsure as to whether they should opt for a proofreading, copyediting or rewriting service, and some clients are quite sure of what they want - but wrong. For detailed information on what our proofreading, copyediting and rewriting services entail, please visit the services' individual pages. For help deciding which of these services is best for your project, read on - or have a look at an example.
Proofreading
Proofreading is the correction of errors. A document should only be proofread once it has been written and fully edited, and all the wording and structure firmly decided upon. Some people choose to proofread their own work, but this is not generally considered to be a good idea, because the author of a piece of writing will nearly always see what they expect to see (and know should be there) and is therefore pretty likely to miss a lot of the typos and mistakes. And, of course, if you were unsure how to spell something when you wrote the document, the chances are that you still are!
The proofreading process will weed out any errors in the spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation, but will not consist of any changes to the writing as such.
The Decorus Lacuna proofreading service costs £0.01 per word, and we are able to comfortably handle quite tight deadlines. Where your writing is on a technical or otherwise specialist subject, we will seek to place your assignment with a proofreader with a degree and/or professional experience in the field.
Email us to discuss your proofreading project.
Copyediting
Copyediting (or simply 'editing') is a far more extensive practice that consists of both correcting errors and creative rewording. A document should be edited after it has been written, and its content confirmed, but prior to its being proofread. Copyediting one's own work is usually a little more successful than proofreading one's own work, but it is still very often beneficial to have a second pair of eyes look over your work. The problem with checking a piece of writing that you have just written is that, again, you see what you expect to see, and presuppose knowledge that you need your reader to have. An experienced editor and second reader is far better placed to highlight areas in which the writing is unclear, repetitive or unnecessarily convoluted.
The copyediting process can include the reduction or increase of the word count, creative rewriting, the amending of text to ensure clarity or the deletion of text to make the piece concise. Copyediting can also include the addition of small amounts of text to expand on important points or 'straighten out' unclear sections.
The Decorus Lacuna copyediting service also includes full proofreading, but this is not included in the general definition of the word.
Our copyediting service costs £0.02 per word, and we are able to comfortably handle quite tight deadlines. Again, where your writing is on a technical or otherwise specialist subject, we will seek to place your assignment with a copyeditor with a degree and/or professional experience in the field.
Email us to discuss your copyediting project.
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Rewriting</span>
Rewriting is a markedly different practice to copyediting or proofreading, and consists of a dramatic overhaul of the existing text. In most cases, rewriting a document involves breaking the existing piece right down to its component information or content, and building a new piece from scratch. This service is most commonly used for commercial purposes: the rewriting of PLR articles or the reworking of existing web content to use on a separate site and avoid its being tagged as duplicate content. Although rewriting another writer's work is not technically an act of plagiarism, it is highly unethical and we do not accept these type of assignments.
Rewriting is often necessary where a document has been translated from another language and now exists in 'broken English'. For writing like this, the editing process often simply will not suffice because the overall structure of the piece is inappropriate for the target language.
In other cases, a webmaster owns a number of sites that sell the same (or a similar) product, and would like to have the same content written in different ways for each site. In these cases, we use this online duplicate content checker and achieve scores of less than 8, but we are more than happy to use the version of the client's choice. As evidence of our confidence that we will never fail to achieve this pre-agreed standard, we promise that - should you have to return work to us that has failed to meet this standard - we will redo the work and provide it free of charge.
Our rewriting service costs £0.03 per word and we are able to comfortably handle quite tight deadlines. Again, where your writing is on a technical or otherwise specialist subject, we will seek to place your assignment with a rewriter with a degree and/or professional experience in the field.
Email us to discuss your rewriting project.
If you're still not sure which of these services would best suit your project, click here for a sample.