What every good copy editor should do

By Shelley Robertson, Ryerson University

• Read stories for clarity and meaning; rewrite where necessary

• Correct grammar and spelling

• Check for style

• Check for errors of fact

• Check for legal errors

• Add important background facts and provide answers for implied questions

• Check for taste

• Shorten the story while retaining essential information, unity and coherence

• Save space by cutting verbosity

• Combine two or more stories, sometimes from different sources, to produce a single report that eliminates confused or contradictory messages

• Write a headline that will attract readers' attention

Good journalistic English:

• Limit the number of ideas in each sentence

• Use the active voice whenever possible

• Be positive

• Avoid monotony

• Use specific words

• Strike out meaningless modifiers

• Avoid needless repetition (once is enough, twice a feast, thrice a felony)

• Avoid monologophobia (a monologophobe would rather walk down Yonge Street naked than be caught using the same word more than once in three lines of type)

• Care for meanings

• Avoid cliches like the plague

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