Microedit for consistency and accuracy in the detail
Microediting is the editing pass meant to ensure consistency and accuracy in the detail of a document and across a series of documents. It covers a long list of small things, from formatting and language to abbreviations, references, units and numbers. Considering it when the editorial process is planned should reduce the work it needs later, the full microedit is likely to fall to an editor although everyone involved in authoring and editing should know what it involves, and it is done efficiently when the editor knows what the document requires and checks one thing at a time.
What microediting is and why it matters
Microediting, also known as technical editing or sometimes as mechanical editing, is the stage of editing where the editor gets down to the detail. Its purpose is to ensure consistency as well as accuracy within a document and across a series of documents. The same principles apply to text in digital media such as websites.
Microediting is an important stage of editing, needed to gain and retain a reader's interest and respect by assuring them that the product is of high quality. Unclear and over-wordy text is not the only thing that can discourage readers: lack of attention to detail can drive them to distraction and make them doubt the quality and authority of what they are reading. Leaving out the microediting stage is dangerous, because the message of the text may be lost as readers move on quickly to a more authoritative source. A reader such as a journal editor or a regulator may be making decisions that are crucial for the writer or their company.
What it covers
Microediting can involve a large number of wide-ranging tasks, from language editing to formatting and checking the accuracy of data or hyperlinks. When microediting, the editor looks out for things such as these:
- adherence to format requirements, as in a journal article
- formatting, such as heading levels, tables and figures, and page layout
- use of bold, underline and italics
- language, including grammar, spelling and punctuation
- hyphenation
- capitalisation
- bulleted lists
- brackets
- abbreviations
- reference style
- units
- numbers
The presentation of numbers is a vast and controversial field of its own. For digital products, the editor may need to check that all hyperlinks are in the correct style and that they work, or check the coding that dictates how content is displayed.
Planning it into the project
Microediting should not be an afterthought, and it should be considered when the editorial process is planned. Asking all contributing authors to adhere to a guide on style essentials should reduce the editorial work needed later. A robust, easy-to-use template also helps maintain consistency.
Who does it
Everyone involved in authoring and editing should be aware of the factors involved in microediting. Authors, for example, should ensure that abbreviations are defined and have only one meaning, that references are complete, and that tables and figures are referenced in the text. The full microedit of completed text, which spots and corrects its inconsistencies, omissions and errors, is still likely to be done by a medical editor rather than an author.
A writer enraged by a check-out sign for 10 items or less, a greengrocer offering potato's for sale or a missing superscript linking to a footnote in a scientific paper will probably love microediting, while one who prefers the big picture and enjoys rewriting and restructuring text may find macroediting more to their taste. All medical writers should still be aware of the aims and tasks of microediting and its role in document quality.
What a document requires
Microediting should take a structured and methodical approach that keeps the reader in mind. The questions essential in macroediting need to be borne in mind in microediting too: who the document is for, what they want to know, what the message is and how the product is going to be presented. The answers may influence how much to use abbreviations, whether UK or US English is more appropriate, or even what font size would be best.
The tasks of microediting are many and varied, and what is required is dictated to some extent by the nature and aim of the product being edited. Questions that turn on the product include whether consistency across a multi-author work or a set of conference proceedings is essential, whether the text needs checking against sources or that has already been done in the macroediting or another quality-control procedure, and whether its medium brings tasks of its own, such as checking hyperlinks or the animations in a slide set. A standard operating procedure or a list of the tasks that need to be done helps.
Checking one thing at a time
Rather than trying to check everything while working through a document, the editor should batch up tasks and do sequential checks, one task at a time: for example, checking the whole document for heading levels, next checking the whole document for abbreviations, and finally running a spelling and grammar check on the complete document. Checklists can serve both as a reminder of what needs doing and as a record of what has been done.
Technology can help, provided it is used wisely, whether it is the spelling and grammar checker in Word, the more advanced features of Word or specialist software. Tasks should be automated where possible, with care. Changing every instance of …ize to …ise without thought, for example, ends in the sise of the group was 35.
A methodical approach requires concentration. The editor should work somewhere free of distractions such as the sound of emails arriving or other interruptions.