PART I. HOW EDITING SERVICE WORKS

       In your edit, Lawrence Geddie will either fix or make suggestions to smooth out your native English or ESL writing and see that it's consistent. The editing style of Clean Copy or MS Word "Comments" is your option if your work is written in MS Word. Lawrence does not rewrite or tamper with the intent or meaning of your work, but rather goes after the most correct English and best-phrased reading "flow."  This involves ferreting out any questionable or improvable usage (spelling; run-on sentences; overlong paragraphs; cloying syntax and, potentially, questioning of the relevance within a sequence to the perceived intent, theme, or character).  At times he may suggest a re-arrangement of paragraphs, sentences, or clauses within a sentence.
 

     If MS Word is not available to you, the Word "Comments" edit method described following doesn't apply and an alternate style such as Clean Copy (unmarked pages) or Text Brackets will be used. The details of editing, for example, a plain text document which you cannot view in Word will be explained in email correspondence with Lawrence. In most cases .txt , .rtf and .pdf documents can be converted to MS Word if needed.

     When you send your final draft, it is helpful if you can also send (a) what areas in your work you think will most need checking; and (b) any specific instructor or Committee guidelines or, if long Fiction or Screenplay, a 1-page Synopsis so that Lawrence is able to keep the entire work in mind during the proofreading-editing process. For new authors, the Synopsis is an 8-10 paragraph list of "what happens next" in the work from start to finish, usually made from your Chapter or Sequence outline. It is a requirement for submission to almost all publishers and literary agents.
 

    
     After you receive your final corrected copy, you are still free to contact Lawrence to clarify any correction or suggestion made in the edited draft. All material submitted is strictly confidential and will never be divulged beyond your own private correspondence with Lawrence.
 

    
     Once your work has been sent by email or on disk by regular mail, your fee can be determined based on approximately 250 words per page for each double-spaced MS Word-compatible page.  If your work is single-spaced, a 200 page work, for example, will usually be assessed as approximately 300 double-spaced Word pages. The fastest method of determining your approximate total fee is to divide your Total number of words by 250, as this will be the basis for determining your fee (with decreasing page rates after the first 100 pp.). Every other project submitted will receive a 10% discount in the editing fee.

     When you have sent your project by email attachment or disk/cd, agreement is reached on your total number of double-spaced equivalent pages. If you intend using a credit card for payment, you can be "billed" by email using the secure payment service, PAYPAL. The initial billing, for clients whose projects are 50 or more "Word" pages, will be for 50% of the total fee, after which editing can commence.  Once completed, you will receive final billing for the 50% balance and the work will be sent back to you immediately in your chosen editing method and format.

     For Clean Copy edited projects, Lawrence will make a separate Notes.txt document if he has specific questions on areas of your writing where he cannot determine your meaning from the sentence context. Once full or initial payment is made,  the edit will proceed straight through to completion.
 

    
     To reiterate, the traditional editing procedures used in MS Word are either "Comments" or "Track Changes."  If you do not wish a Clean Copy & Word Compare editing style, Lawrence as well as current clients find the COMMENTS method preferable for ease of usage when you receive back your completed project. Using Comments, nothing in your original is changed during the editing process; rather you are shown the suggestions for changes, and if you do not wish to make a change, you simply right-click and "Delete Comment," which removes the Comment box and highlight. As mentioned above, later versions of Word place these Comments on the right margin, but they are still removed by right-clicking and "Deleting Comment."

     To prepare yourself to receive your final edited draft using Comments, go to any MS Word document, then click on VIEW-REVIEWING, then "select" any word or phrase. Inserting a Comment will highlight the word or phrase and create a right-margin Comment Box (or a bubble in early Word versions).  Then, click on VIEW - COMMENTS and you'll see how the entire list of recommended changes in your .doc will be shown at the bottom of your page. This list can be re-sized up or down to facilitate making your final changes to your Master draft, and will be the same type of fixes and suggestions that will be returned to you. When VIEW-COMMENTS is clicked on, all of the "Comments" in the entire document A-Z will show at the bottom of your page.  If needed, these Comments can be changed in font size or even selected and copied to a separate printable list. You will be able to work through and finalize your entire manuscript in a relatively short time using these targeted notes.

     As mentioned  above, the essential editing/proofing question you need to decide prior to your work being edited is which method suits you best, either the:

(a) "Clean Copy" edit method, in which Lawrence fixes and re-writes as he finds most consistent and appropriate and then returns to you as an unmarked new version. In this option you will be sent back a master draft in which either an MS Word TOOLS-"COMPARE AND MERGE" or a line-by-line comparison to your original will need to be made in order to quickly see the edited changes.  Click here to see a brief sample of an ESL CLEAN COPY edited paper.

(b) "Comments" editing style in which you see any suggestions or changes on a temporary list at the bottom of your Word page (as well as in a text box or bubble next to the targeted words) and then accept and put in suggested wording on your Master draft, or you may decide to leave the sentence as it was; or the recommended "Clean Copy" style as described above.

 Your decision with regard to these two options should be thought through, as you will still need a period of time after receiving your work back to review the edited version and may possibly wish to revert to some of your original wording that has been suggested for changes.  If you're not certain which style to choose, it may be helpful to read Part II below to see how to work with the completed edit of either type before deciding. In all cases, Clean Copy is the quickest method in both editing and finalizing, but "Comments" is better for learning what your consistent errors may be in English grammar, though it takes longer to finalize because you must physically make each change yourself.

     Following is a sample screenshot of the Word 2000 or earlier Yellow Highlight Word "COMMENTS." As seen, each Comment has its own number for easy reference:
 

PART II. HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR COMPLETED EDIT

     When you receive your edited document back, it is suggested that you first save the entire .doc under a backup title, then work through the edited manuscript using your pre-agreed choice of the  CLEAN COPY or COMMENTS method of editing. Whenever possible, it's also suggested that your work be backed up on a pen drive or other disk (in the event of hard drive failure).
 

IF YOU ARE USING THE "COMMENTS" EDIT METHOD:

In MS Word, when you click on "View-Comments" or "Show-Reviewing Pane," the complete list of suggestions is seen at bottom of page, so that the quickest way to work with your edited pages is to look at each Comment box (at right margin or, if early Word, in a bubble above the yellow highlighted words), then decide if you want to make the change.  IF the change is easy to remember, right-click and "Delete Comment," then make the wording/punctuation change. For longer or full-sentence change suggestions that you wish to use, it's easiest to copy/paste the suggested change from the Comment List at bottom of page or the Comment box at right margin. The Reviewing Pane in Word can be moved up to the middle of the page for quicker access to the paragraph you are finalizing. For each Comment made, you must right-click and "Delete Comment" in the text to remove (assuming you wish to make the edited version your new Master draft). [NOTE: The main text will jump to any Comment that you click on in the bottom REVIEWING PANE Comment List.]
 

IF YOU ARE USING THE "CLEAN COPY"
UNMARKED EDIT METHOD:

FOR NEWER MS WORD: If you have Word 2003 or later, you may click on "Tools-Compare and Merge" from the Word top menu; any revised and original documents A & B will be compared line-by-line, with each and every change to the original visible. This Comparison is not referring to Word's "Track Changes" capability, which is not used by Lawrence in the editing, as it gives only a single "Accept" or "Reject" option, thus leaving no room for the gray areas in which 2 or more optional wordings may be suggested when edited using WORD "Comments." Be certain that TRACK CHANGES is clicked OFF in Toolbars before beginning to finalize your MS Word project.

FOR OLDER WORD PROGRAMS: If you are using Word 97 or 2000 (or non-Word software programs), the quickest way to make line-by-line comparisons from the CLEAN COPY edited version to your original is to "Tile" your window by opening both the original and edited Word documents, then re-sizing them on your screen for viewing side by side. In this way you can make your comparison and drag and drop any of your original wording back into the master edited draft if needed.