Reinventing the copy editor: conventions to keep, throw out and add

Reinventing the copy editor: conventions to keep, throw out and add: "Reinventing the copy editor: conventions to keep, throw out and add"

Copy editing isn't dead on the Web ― but it does need a revival. (Today is, after all, National Punctuation Day, so what better time to talk about copy editing?)

Clean, clear and consistent copy makes any media brand look more professional, regardless of the medium. But when I scoured the Web and asked my fellow journalists for resources about copy editing, I found most of the information is still stuck in a print-first world.

With traditional copy desks cut to the bone or eliminated entirely at many publications, the nature of copy editing on the Web has changed. Writers and editors left to pick up the pieces need to develop a better understanding of which traditional copy-editing conventions to keep in the digital world and which ones to let go ― and how to stay versatile as delivery platforms evolve. Here are a few tips to improve the copy editing process in an online, increasingly mobile publishing world.

Everyone is a copy editor..

Geek it up with a style guide.

Be search-friendly.

Stay flexible.

Many publishers have ditched formal styles of writing (e.g. frowning upon question marks) in favor of the casual style of the Web. Love them or hate them, puns no longer show up as often in headlines, as editors try to be clever for Google and not newsstands.

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