Verbal Essence

Consulting

Many people have ideas but few actually are able to implement a strategy to make these ideas

fully materialize.  Creating a detailed plan of action, projections of milestones and thoroughly

flushing out all aspects of your project are key in making your dreams fully realized. As a

consultant, Verbal Essence provides services that help map out your goals, develop your plan

and set you on your way to implementation of your idea.  Ask any business person and they will

tell you that you can't travel without a road map and you can't create without a plan.  Additional

fees may apply if the scope of the project requires research and the assistance of outside

resources.

Editing

At all levels of copy editing—light, medium, and heavy—Verbal Essence corrects errors, queries

our clients about conflicting statements, requests advice when the means of resolving a problem

is unclear, and prepares a style sheet. Before work begins, Verbal Essence will determine if the

copy editing fee will cover cleanup editing or if cleanup editing will be performed for an additional

fee.

Light Copy editing (baseline editing)

• Correcting faulty spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
  

• Correcting incorrect usage (such as can for may).
  

• Checking specific cross-references
  

• Ensuring consistency in spelling, hyphenation, numerals, fonts, and capitalization.
  

• Checking for proper sequencing (such as alphabetical order)in lists and other displayed
  material.
  

• Recording the first references to figures, tables, and other display elements.
  

• A light copy edit does not involve interventions such as smoothing transitions or changing
  headings or text to ensure parallel structure.
  

• Verbal Essence checks content only to detect spots where copy is missing.
  

Medium Copy editing

• Performing all tasks for light copy editing.

• Changing text and headings to achieve parallel structure.
  

• Flagging inappropriate figures of speech.
  

• Ensuring that key terms are handled consistently and that vocabulary lists and the index
  contain all the terms that meet criteria specified by the publisher.
  

• Ensuring that previews, summaries, and end-of-chapter questions reflect content.
  

• Tracking the continuity of plot, setting, and character traits, and querying the
  discrepancies, in fiction manuscripts.
  

• Enforcing consistent style and tone in a multi-author manuscript.
  

• Changing passive voice to active voice, if requested.
  

• Flagging ambiguous or incorrect statements.
  

• Type marking the manuscript.
  

Heavy Copy editing (substantive editing)

• Performing all tasks for medium copy editing.
  

• Eliminating wordiness, triteness, and inappropriate jargon.
  

• Smoothing transitions and moving sentences to improve readability.
  

• Assigning new levels to heads to achieve logical structure.
  

• Suggesting and sometimes implementing additions and deletions, noting them at the sentence and paragraph level.

The key differences between heavy and medium copy edits are the levels of judgment and rewriting involved.

Proofreading (All proofreading projects include light copy editing)

As a proofreader Verbal Essence marks typeset copy word for word against a manuscript,
identifies deviations for correction, and queries editorial errors.

Verbal Essence may also check copy for conformity to type specifications, create a style sheet,
and ensure attractive typography by checking kerning, margins, word spacing, repetitive word
breaks, and the like. If Verbal Essence is not given copy marked manuscript to refer to when
proofing final materials, it can be referred to as "blind" or "cold" proofreading.

As an editorial proofreader Verbal Essence combines proofreading with some copy editing tasks.This can include correcting errors such as misspellings, typos, mis-numbering or mislabeling,
subject-verb disagreement, word usage (such as the use of imminent for eminent), and identifying
incorrect or outdated cross-references. If copy is missing, Verbal Essence will request the copy.

Publishers often request editorial proofreading when previously published material is to be
reprinted, or when there are concerns about possible input errors in material that has been
heavily edited or drastically reformatted.