Editing: Rules & Methods

1. Before sending your manuscript—Before sending your manuscript to the editor, be sure to check all the submission rules on our website and make sure you have complied with them.

2. After sending your manuscript to your editor—After you send your manuscript to the editor, do not keep working on a copy of the manuscript on your own. If you go through the book and want to make changes, list them on a separate document and make note of the page number, paragraph number and sentence. That seems like a lot of extra work, but there can only be ONE MASTER COPY at a time. Otherwise it can become extremely confusing. When the editor sends your manuscript back for review, that is when you can insert the changes you have listed in your separate "Revision Document," but please do so ONLY in the REVIEW MODE of Microsoft Word, so that all changes are tracked and visible.

3. After receiving your manuscript back from the editor—Once you receive your manuscript back from the editor, you will need to look at it in the REVIEW MODE of Microsoft Word. At that time you will need to APPROVE all changes you agree with, ONE AT A TIME, by hitting "ACCEPT INSERTION" or "ACCEPT DELETION." When you do that, the change will be absorbed back into the text with no visible marking and will no longer be evident as a change. It will simply appear as part of the manuscript.

If you do NOT approve of a change, do not click on "REJECT INSERTION" or "REJECT DELETION." If you do, your editor will have no way of knowing what you disagreed with and if it is actually a mistake, it will be absorbed back into the document and will be easily overlooked. Instead, make a numbered list of things you don't agree with, things you have questions about, or things that you want to change. In that list, describe each issue by giving the page number, the paragraph number and the sentence number. Then you can go over those issues one at a time with your editor until a final decision on each item is made.

You will also need to respond to all "COMMENTS" made by the editor or editors before proceeding.