Advanced Copy Editing: Transform Content, Style & Structure

Learn the deep editing techniques of masterful copy editors

Are you curious about how to bring more of a writer’s flair and creativity to editing so you’re not just checking for errors all the time?

In this course you will learn how to do a deep edit that goes way beyond the usual grammar, spelling and punctuation checks. That means exploring the substantive levels of style, expression, structure and content.

You see, most editors focus on ordinary copy editing and proofreading, which is all about correcting errors, following rules and getting extremely nit-picky about the placement of commas. It’s a necessary task, but it’s not exactly the most fun or creative work. Where it really gets interesting is when you can go beyond error-correction and become part of the creative process of shaping and developing a text. This is what we call substantive or deep editing – and it’s exactly what I’m going to show you on this course.

Contents and overview

We’re going to treat the substantive edit as a three-step process:

• First, we’ll look at how to do a content edit to make sure the reader will understand the text. You’ll see how you can edit for content in any subject, even those you know very little about.

• Next, I’ll walk you through how to do a structural edit, where we reorganize the content to enhance its logical flow and coherence.

• And finally, we’ll do a stylistic edit where we optimize the language, tone and readability of the text.

I’ll explain both the theory and practice of each step, with exercises and onscreen demonstrations showing you how to perform each type of edit in Microsoft Word.

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to do a substantive edit on any document from short articles to company reports and even full-length novels and books.

Is this course right for you?

This course is ideal for you if you already have some training or experience in basic copyediting and proofreading and you want to level up your skills. But it’s also right for you if you don’t have any experience and this is your first taste of editing. Even though this is an "advanced" course, there’s very little in the course that depends on prior knowledge, and where there is, I’ll provide a handy recap. (PS ... it's an advanced course because this level is usually taught after the core copy editing and proofreading skills, but many editors enter the field the other way around.)

What is NOT covered

We don’t cover the core copy editing and proofreading skills of grammar, spelling and punctuation in this course, so if you do need to pick up on that knowledge, check out my course Become a Copy Editor and Proofreader. However, you do NOT need to have done that (or similar) course to be able to do this course on substantive editing. They are separate skill sets that can be learned in any order.

How this course is different

Most copy editing and proofreading courses teach you how to edit for grammar, spelling and punctuation. Editors are left thinking that this is all there is to editing – and it’s no wonder they get bored with the job and feel limited after a while. What they don’t know is that there is a whole realm of editing that goes beyond mechanical, rules-based error correction. So in this course we’re going to take the leap into that higher realm where you get to be a creative partner with the author rather than just the person who cleans up the grammar and nails the typos.

When you do this course, you’re going to transform into a masterful editor who can bring clarity and style to even the most confusing and poorly written texts. You’ll find editing a whole lot more enjoyable at this level – and you’ll be able to command higher pay rates!

Course delivery

This course includes more than 3.5 hours of video learning plus practical exercises and a comprehensive Course Notes PDF.

I am always available behind the scenes to answer your questions and update the content when necessary.

There's a lot in this course, so find out more by looking at the topic list and trying out the preview videos. And then I look forward to meeting you in the course. Let's start editing!