Editing: Correcting, restyling or restructuring a text to make it ready for publication.

Proofreading: Checking an already-typeset, print-ready text for inconsistencies or mistakes missed during copyediting, typesetting errors, and problems in design and layout.

Self-publishing: Shepherding an author's work through the entire process of getting it published.

Formatting: Creating a layout or template for the presentation of text and information, in print or online.

Typesetting | layout: Creation of the print-ready text with any graphics, generally as a PDF which will then be proofread.

Project management: Controlling the copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, and indexing of a book to an agreed schedule and budget. The scope of the work and the responsibilities of the editor and the client are negotiated before the work begins.

Writing: Originating a text, typically based on supplied raw materials or sometimes an interview process.

Training | mentoring: Imparting skill in copyediting, proofreading, and related services through courses, webinars, or talks, on a one-to-one, group-based, synchronous, or asynchronous basis.

Authenticity reading: Reviewing a text for correctness of information and expression within a particular knowledge domain.

Sensitivity reading: Critical reading of a text to check for unconscious bias and to ensure that people, places, happenings, concepts, and ideas are presented as accurately, sensitively, and thoughtfully as possible. Readers may draw on their own lived experience to consider the representation of an (often minoritized) social group, a disability, a condition or addiction, or a life situation, and to prioritize care and inclusion.

Manuscript evaluation: Critical reading of a fiction or non-fiction manuscript to provide detailed feedback on a manuscript’s structure, ideas, plot, characters, setting, style, accessibility, and other general features.

Book coaching: Working with authors, either one-to-one or in a small group, to plan, write, complete, and revise their book.

Fact-checking: Using reference works and other reliable sources to check that facts in a manuscript are true and up to date, and that tables and calculations are correct.

Answer-checking: Verifying the correctness of sample answers in educatioal texts.

Copyediting: Ensuring that spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and grammar are correct and accord with a house style or style guidelines, or are simply consistent across the text. It includes checking that elements of the text – such as chapter titles, cross-references, links, and captions in non-fiction texts, and characters’ names and attributes, as well as narrative details, in fiction – are correct and consistent.

Line editing, or stylistic editing: Editing at sentence level, cosidering syntax, flow, voice and sense of the text. Ensuring the content is conveyed as clearly and consistently as possible, is free from jargon and cliché, and respects the intended readership.

Developmental editing, or structural editing: Assessing and advising on the structure and organisation of a work to ensure a logical flow of ideas and improve clarity and effectiveness. It requires close collaboration between editor and author, and it may include intervention in the text, such as rewriting or moving of sentences, paragraphs, and sections; adding to or removing sections of text; suggesting additional content; and recommending changes to the presentation.

Copywriting: Creating text designed to elicit a reaction in the reader, for example to buy a product, join an organisation, contribute funds.

Proposal writing: Creating text designed to elicit funds from a grant-making body, gain permission from a planning authority, or achieve a similar aim.

Content writing: Creating online text for blog posts, social media, and websites, intended to engage a specific target audience, establish authority, and drive website traffic through search engine optimization.

Ghostwriting: Writing a book, typically a memoir, in the name and voice of a generally well-known person with a story to tell but without the time or skill to write it.

Abstracting or summarizing: Creating brief abstracts of technical or professional papers, or summaries of lengthy reports for management or media consumption.

The list is not exhaustive – for something different, or more specific, use text search.

Some editors or proofreaders work on specific publication types only; you can eliminate false positives in your search results by indicating what publication type(s) you are working with.

The list is not exhaustive – for something different, or more specific, use text search.