Why Choose Proofreading Services over Editing Services?

Proofreading and editing services can be used together in the same document, but they are incredibly different in terms of what they focus on. Furthermore, the skills that a person needs in order to provide strong proofreading and editing services vary significantly, especially in terms of the subject-specific expertise that an editor needs (but that a proofreader does not necessarily need).

Proofreading services, as shown in Examples 1, 2, and 3 below, focus on the correction of grammar, spelling, and punctuation issues in a piece of writing. In Example 1, the text submitted for proofreading is low-quality and rich in mistakes, as well as opportunities for clarification. As shown in Example 2, the proofreader has identified and corrected several critical issues, including missing definite articles (e.g., “the inverse problem”), missing grammatical subjects (e.g., “allow researchers to map”), and the inappropriate use of the passive voice (e.g., “inverse problem can be physically constrained by”). At the same time, the proofreader has identified spelling mistakes (“e.g., “non-uniqueness”), and other general language issues that are considered fundamental for a sound and error-free piece of writing.

Image: An example of typical proofreading services

An illustration of typical editing services is given in Examples 4, 5, and 6. In this set of examples, the same text from the proofreading example given previously is used. As these examples indicate, the key difference between the job of a proofreader and editor relates to the level of comprehensiveness that is applied throughout the service. For example, as shown in Example 5, the editor has decided to rework the whole of the second sentence of the original document, in contrast to the proofreader, who stopped at the level of correcting the unsuitable use of the passive voice. This example is reflective of an important feature of editingservices, namely that they tend to go one level deeper than proofreading services, focusing on issues such as style and clarity to a much greater extent.

Image: Work completed by an editor

Another key difference relating to the work that proofreaders and editors apply to your document relates to the issues of concision, style, and structure. To give an example, if a proofreader encounters an excessive level of repetition in a document, along with a weak structure, they are not likely to correct this. Strong and reliable proofreaders will leave a comment and alert this to you, but it is beyond the scope of a proofreader’s task to intervene in your writing at the level of concision, style, and structure. By contrast, one of the key functions of an editor is to pay attention to issues such as style, structure, and concision. This is evident in Example 5, where the length of the edited version of the two sentences is 30 words, whereas the length of the original version is 37 words. Additionally, whereas the proofreader has adeptly corrected the passive voice misuse in the original sentence, they have not paid attention to document length and concision (resulting in a length of more than 40 words).

As will be clear to you if you have noted what the main differences between proofreading and editing are, these services can also be used in combination. For example, if you have areas of your document that are especially weak, you can have an editor check over them. Contradistinction, if you believe some paragraphs are strong and do not require intensive intervention, then proofreading may be the most suitable service in those cases.