Copy-Editing Skills

Copy-Editing Skills, the Publishing Training Centre’s flagship course, aims to:

• give you a clear overview of the copy-editor’s role in the publishing process
• give you a firm foundation in the core skills of copy-editing
• give you the opportunity to practise using these symbols on a variety of texts.

First delivered more than 30 years ago, the course has had many upgrades and revisions over the years, but the simple essence of the course's success – comprehensive learning through a series of paper-based exercises with a highly experienced practitioner – has remained the same. Of course, many of the copy-editor’s decisions will today be effected fully or partly on screen, but we ensure that editors are confident in ‘what’ needs to be done and ‘why’ first. The ‘how’ follows on from that. This process allows you to develop a keen editorial eye, and the use of paper-based material gives you the opportunity to practise marking up copy for others to follow without the additional distraction of grappling with word-processing software.

Copy-Editing Skills focuses on 20 key activities, including a thorough explanation of how to use the BSI standard marks for copy preparation. You will be given the opportunity to practise using these symbols on a variety of texts. You will also receive detailed instruction on the correct use of many frequently misunderstood features, such as italic text and quotation marks. Advice is also offered on tricky editorial problems, such as notes, bibliographies, and figures.

The majority of exercises focus on one particular skill, but incorporate other incidental errors, mimicking real life copy-editing work. The final day’s consolidation exercises bring together everything you have learnt. You will be surprised to see how far you have come in a short time and how much your confidence has increased.

There are no definitive answers in copy-editing, but you will come away with three exercises marked-up by an experienced editor, a full set of exercises used throughout the course, and handouts on key areas such as copyright, terminology, notes and references.

This course is a springboard onto many of The Publishing Training Centre’s well known editorial offerings, such as Editing Illustrated Books, Editing Scientific, Technical and Medical Texts, Editing in Word, Advanced Copy-Editing, etc.

If you are not working in a book or journal publishing company you might like to consider Editing for Business.