Ten Commandments for Copy Editors

By Shelley Robertson, Ryerson University

1. Take pride in your work.

2. Be a tiger for accuracy. If a fact contradicts another, check it. If it seems overblown or unlikely, check it. If you get even a little tickle of doubt in your stomach about it, check, check, check.

3. Work like a mechanic, repairing rather than replacing.

4. Know not only how to take a bad sentence apart, but how to put a good one together.

5. Avoid adjectives and swear by the little verbs that bounce and leap and cut and thrust.

6. Try to read each article three times — once for a general’s overview of content and organization; once for the trench warfare of editing; once again to check the battlefield for unclaimed bodies.

7. Be a surrogate reader: Do I understand it? Do I want to read it? Can I trust it? Is anything missing? What do I need to know next?

8. Wage war on clutter. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should have no words that loaf; a paragraph no sentences that idle.

9. Collect detail like a Trivial Pursuit player, and dispense it with all the hype of a mild-mannered accountant.

10. Make this your credo: When dangling, watch your participles.

Shelley Robertson teaches journalism at Ryerson University and frequently gives seminars on copy editing.