Anita D.

McClellan Associates
Literary Consulting since 1988
464 Common St., Suite 142, Belmont, MA 02478
adm@anitamcclellan.com 1-575-9203; fax 1-206-203-0829
http://www.anitamcclellan.com
Developmental Editor (2 pp.)

What a Developmental Editor Does

A developmental editor spends many hours of reading and editing a manuscript and may
also deliver a written commentary providing an objective look at the work as a whole
focusing on both general issues and specific areas of editorial concern or responding to
client or author queries.

A developmental editor
• Recognizes structure appropriate for intended audience and medium. Suggests deletions,
additions, or rearrangements if appropriate (e.g., where there are gaps in content, missing steps in
the argument, unclear transitions). May reorganize sections or chapters into an appropriate (e.g.,
logical or entertaining) structure and sequence, keeping in mind that the nature of the final
publication often determines organization (e.g., a book, an academic or commercial magazine
article differ in structure, as does a PDF download and a Web site).

• Revises or cuts to meet length requirements.

• Creates an editorial working outline to reveal structure and to identify overall structure, clarity,
voice, theme, character development, plotting, pacing, and factual consistencies.

• Establishes a consistent style, reading level, point of view, and level of decorum, while
maintaining a voice that is recognizably the author's.

• Enhances, or at least preserves, appropriate stylistic and dramatic devices (and minimizes
inappropriate ones).

• Recognizes language appropriate for the intended audience and medium, and makes changes as
necessary. Addresses topics of punctuation, grammar or word choice only if they are pervasive
issues throughout the manuscript but does not do line- or copyediting.

• Recognizes and clarifies ambiguous vocabulary and syntax. Recognizes and eliminates
redundancies, verbosity, and jargon that is inappropriate for the intended audience. Corrects or
improves infelicitous connections and transitions, parallels, and paragraphing.

• Recognizes and corrects inconsistencies in the form and use of headings (e.g., inappropriate
level, nonparallel forms). Maintains consistent style in headings and captions for tables, figures,
illustrations. Recognizes when prose would be better presented in another form (e.g., number-
laden text as a table or chart, descriptive material as a diagram or illustration, a long series of
points as a list).
 Anita D. McClellan Associates
Literary Consulting since 1988
464 Common St., Suite 142, Belmont, MA 02478
adm@anitamcclellan.com 1-575-9203; fax 1-206-203-0829
http://www.anitamcclellan.com
Developmental Editor (2 pp.)

• Recognizes statements that should be checked for accuracy and follows up as required by the
client. Identifies inconsistencies in logic, facts, and details such as time, nomenclature, or setting,
and corrects or queries as required.

• Writes coherent and diplomatic notes to authors explaining changes or asking for clarification,
and negotiates such changes.

• Identifies in language and in content possible libel and plagiarism, permissions required for
material under copyright, departures from social acceptability (e.g., gender, ethnicity, or age bias;
failure to cite sources).

Thanks in part for Standards for Structural and Stylistic Editing to <http://www.editors.ca/resources/
eac_publications/pes/index.html>. For what a copy editor does, visit: http://www.kokedit.com/approach.shtml