Taking a Copyediting Test? Read These Insider Tips (Part I)

Are you a copyeditor seeking to work with publishers or packagers? If so, you may be asked to take an editing test, even if you’re an experienced editor. And if you’re accustomed to working directly with authors, or if you’re a newer editor or haven’t sought a new client for a while, you may be worried about what approach is expected and what the test grader is looking for.

I’ve graded countless editing tests, and although I can’t say that every editing test is the same or that every grader would make the same judgments I would, I know that hearing my perspective  has helped many editors I know approach their editing tests with confidence. In this blog post, I’ll share the basics of what I look for. And in my next post (now published here), I’ll share specific tips for how to approach an editing test.

First, however, I’ll note that although I’ve graded a few types of editing tests, the majority of my editing-test experience involves vetting editors to copyedit for a large fiction publisher. In my experience, nonfiction publishers and academic publishers aren’t tremendously different in terms of the overall approach and expectations involved in a copyediting test, but those clients’ tests are likely to focus on slightly different issues. For instance, preserving the author’s voice is especially crucial in fiction, while tests for academic publishers or similar clients may present thorny issues involving tables, citations, or abbreviations.

What does a test grader look for in an editing test?

When I’m grading a copyediting test, three concerns are top of mind:

1. Does the editor know the style guide and display a thorough understanding of grammar?

 All my clients require Chicago style, so when I look at an editing test, one of the first things I look for is adherence to Chicago. (If a house style guide has been provided with the test materials, I’d also look for adherence to that.) Has the editor used numerals where Chicago specifies they should be used and spelled numbers out where Chicago specifies spelled-out numbers? Does hyphenation follow Chicago? Does spelling follow Merriam-Webster (Chicago’s preferred dictionary)? And so on and so forth. Things like hyphenation, en dashes, and numerals versus spelled-out numbers are especially tricky, so I look at these issues first. 

I also look at basic understanding of grammar, of course. Are clause commas used appropriately, demonstrating that the editor understands the difference between various types of clauses (and the Chicago rules that apply to them)? Are there issues with noun-verb agreement, joint possession, or other common slip-ups?

Usually, the misses I see involve fairly tricky issues, and if the rest of the test is strong, I may still consider it a pass. But if there are serious problems with basic grammar, like confusion between how to punctuate an action beat versus a dialogue tag or the insertion of grammatical errors, that’s usually an immediate fail.

2. Does the editor display good editorial judgment? Is there a logic behind the edits, and is the editing level appropriate?

I often see editing tests where the editorial decisions aren’t quite the decisions I’d make or aren’t exactly right for the client. This usually isn’t a problem. I’m not looking for someone who makes the exact decisions I’d make or who can magically anticipate the needs of a client before working with them; I’m looking for someone who’s methodical and logical in the way they edit. If I’d make a different editorial decision but I can see and appreciate the logic behind the edit they made, I consider that a good sign.

What’s problematic is if the edits seem random: if the editor has repeatedly corrected an issue in one place but not another or has frequently made edits that don’t seem to have any sound basis in grammar or clarity. If I get the feeling that edits have been made simply because they “sound better,” that’s a bad sign. (This may sound like a subjective judgment on the test grader’s part, but when you’ve seen a lot of editing tests, you can often see at a glance when an editor’s approach comes out of left field.)

This is why it’s important for editors to understand the reasoning behind every edit they make. When you’re dealing with trade publishing, you’re dealing with authors who often are already highly successful, with a defined voice and style. In most cases, a book will have undergone multiple rounds of editing before it reaches the copyeditor. Authors frequently have strong feelings about nearly every word they’ve put on the page. For a copyeditor to start making stylistic changes just because they think a sentence reads better that way is a huge problem: it’s a great way to make authors feel insulted or patronized and to destroy your relationship with your client. However, if you can identify an objective issue that makes the sentence sound “off”—a dangling participle, a redundancy, a misplaced modifier—and edit specifically for that issue, that’s great. Even if the author dislikes the change, the client should understand why you made it.

Similarly, it’s crucial not to overedit. By the time a traditionally published manuscript reaches the copyeditor, it’s usually pretty clean. In the traditionally published fiction manuscripts I edit, around twenty-five to thirty revisions per thousand words is pretty normal—and that’s based on the revision count shown in Word, where changing the spelling of a single word will often count as two revisions. It’s not common to have a manuscript that requires more than forty edits per thousand words. (This pertains to fiction; for academic work, the revision count tends to be a bit higher because citations often require numerous edits and queries.)

If you’ve worked primarily with indie authors, you might look at the editing test and panic because it seems like there’s nothing to edit. Don’t start looking for issues that aren’t there! A light edit is normal.

We all get nervous when we take tests (or at least I do!), and I expect a small degree of nervous overediting. But if a test comes back with an absolute sea of corrections, that’s an issue. In most cases, overediting happens because an editor is making subjective stylistic edits or simply doesn’t understand the difference between a copyedit and more intensive levels of editing.

3. Does the editor display professionalism?

I expect the work done on an editing test to be professional enough that I’d feel comfortable passing the edits and comments directly to the author. If comments are full of spelling and grammatical errors, or if the editor’s tone is rude, that’s likely to take a test from a pass to a fail. Even if the manuscript itself is gorgeously clean, an author won’t feel as if their work is in capable hands if the comments are full of typos. And if an editor doesn’t catch their own errors in an editing test (which is usually a few pages long, at most), I don’t feel optimistic about their ability (or willingness) to catch their own errors in a four-hundred-page book with reams of comments and queries. 

Comments should be polite, clear, respectful, and concise. When I read a query, I want to understand what the problem is, why it’s a problem, and how I might fix it.

And even though the test isn’t a full manuscript, it should be as clean as the final version of a full manuscript edit should be. For instance, the editing process often inserts extra spaces between words or around punctuation. When I’m editing an actual manuscript, I don’t necessarily clean these all up as I go; I do a check at the end, before I send the edited file to the author or client, to locate and remove any extraneous spaces. But for an editing test, these absolutely should be removed; if they aren’t, the grader will be concerned that you didn’t notice or didn’t know it was an issue. 

Of course, I’m an editor myself, and I know I’m not perfect either! A mistake or two in work that’s otherwise gorgeous isn’t going to make me dump your test in the bin. I’m looking for a pattern of issues; I’m not sitting there poised to devour you the moment I see a single typo. I remember how nervous I was for my first editing tests, how hard it was to think straight, and how I made some silly mistakes. And I know perfectly well that no edit I’ve ever done has been flawless: I’m human, like everyone else, and constantly learning.

But what if you fail?

Remember, it’s not the end of the world if you fail an editing test. Maybe the client wasn’t right for you. Maybe your skills aren’t suited to that particular test. I’ve seen stellar editors fail editing tests, and I’ve failed at least one myself. (I chalk that failure up to the fact that the test surprised me by testing me on a style guide I’d never used, but who knows? Maybe there were other things the grader didn’t like. In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t work with that client, but it felt pretty awful at the time!)

You may receive feedback on your test if you ask, but usually you won’t. It takes significant time and energy to give that kind of feedback, and the person who’s grading your test often simply does not have that time or energy to spare. It’s similar to asking for free coaching or mentorship: even when someone genuinely wants to support you, we’ve all got limited time and too many bills to pay.

It feels bad when you fail, but it doesn’t mean you’re not a good editor. It may mean that your skills and experience aren’t quite where they need to be for this type of client, but then again, it may not. It may be bad luck, client-editor misfit, or something else.

Keep learning, keep working, and don’t beat yourself up. There’s always another test.