MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION VS. DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING
Understanding the differences between manuscript evaluation and developmental editing.
A MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION involves a comprehensive review of your entire manuscript providing feedback on its overall structure, clarity, and potential appeal to your target audience.
In this evaluation, my team and I examine the organization of content, the effectiveness of your arguments, how information is presented, the consistency in style and tone, and whether the manuscript meets the needs of its intended readers.
You will receive a written report that highlights strengths and identifies areas needing improvement. This overview is invaluable for understanding how your manuscript functions as a whole and whether it achieves its intended purpose before you delve into more detailed editing.
On the other hand, a DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING is a more in-depth and detailed process aimed at enhancing the manuscript’s content and presentation. It involves significant structuring—or restructuring—of the manuscript’s content.
This can be approached in two ways: as a “big picture” edit, which provides broad direction and helps you form a vision for the book, including chapter-by-chapter coaching as the book is being written; or as a more detailed intervention, examining and suggesting revisions down to the chapter, paragraph, and sentence levels.
This type of editing focuses on structuring chapters, enhancing the flow of information, helping to ensure factual accuracy, and making the content more engaging for your intended audience.
We may discuss better ways to present data, such as through charts or diagrams, and reorganize sections to improve logical progression. While this often involves substantial restructuring and rewriting, the creation of significant new content remains in the author’s. If it goes beyond that, such as me interviewing the author(you) to compose whole new passages, that’s now crossed over into ghostwriting.