WordSharp Editing and Proofreading

FORMATTING
citation style (APA, MLA, AMA, ASA, CSE, Chicago/Turabian)
publisher-specific formatting
trim sizes (pocket book, digest, A5, US trade, royal, comic book, crown quarto, small square, large hardcover, A4, large square, US letter and landscape)
Kindle formatting (a separate flat fee applies)

PROOFREADING
agreement errors
adjective and adverb use
beginning a sentence with a conjunction
comparison of absolute adjectives
countable and uncountable nouns
countable and uncountable quantifiers
dangling modifiers
double negatives
duplicate pronouns
faulty parallelisms
gerund/infinitive use
incomplete comparisons
infinitives without ‘to’
limiting modifiers
misuse of ‘like’ and ‘as’
misuse of ‘much’
misuse of quantifiers
misuse of subordinate clauses
misuse of ‘these’ and ‘those’
missing question marks
modal verb use errors
noun strings
preposition at the end of a sentence
pronoun-antecedent agreement
pronoun case agreement
redundant pairs of words
run-on sentences
sentence fragments
sequence of tense
sequence of words
squinting modifiers
subject-verb disagreement
unbalanced or misplaced punctuation
unnecessary infinitive clauses
use of articles
use of ‘other’ and ‘another’
use of subjunctive
vague pronoun references
verb choice
verb form use
verb tense
wordiness caused by circumlocution
wordiness caused by determiners and modifiers
wrong prepositions

Punctuation Examples
comma splices
comma usage
commas after introductory clauses
proper end-of-sentence punctuation
semicolon use
misplaced punctuation
unbalanced punctuation

Misspellings/Typographical Errors

Hyphenation/Dashes
hyphenation of phrase
hyphenation of words
en dash versus hyphen
en dash versus space
compound words

Spelling Consistency
preferred spelling
spelling variations
accents
numbers in sentences
common typos
phrases to avoid or consider
contractions

Abbreviations
in two forms
defined in two ways
used before definition
defined twice
without definitions
not used
used only once
phrases in capitals
headings in capitals

Bullets/Lists
Bullet punctuation
list punctuation
bullet capitals
list capitals

Tables, Boxes, and Figures
punctuation in tables
capitals in tables
consistency of tables, boxes, figures, and titles
table, box, figure order
missing table, box, figure, title

Miscellaneous
comments left in the text
style points
italics
Oxford comma
parentheses and quotes left open
superscript/subscript

EDITING
audience appropriateness
clarity
colloquialisms
flow
levels of diction
lexical register
organization
phrasing ambiguities
anthropomorphic language
proper word choice
rhetorical consistency
rhythm
structure
theme
transitions

EDITING NOVELS (For novels, we do all of the things in our editing list and the following.)
* strengthen your characters
* redraft dialogue
* set the pace and tone
* nullify plot issues
* Suggest necessary topic development and logic revisions
* Revise and improve sentence construction, precision, and organization
* eliminate redundancies, inconsistencies, wordiness, and other issues with your prose
* remove all other flaws keeping your novel from reaching its potential
* construct your table of contents and all ‘front matter’ pages at no charge

At no charge, we also evaluate your book’s content.
We make evaluative comments and we explain corrections and suggestions covering the following questions.
* What can be done to improve your work’s marketability?
* Is the plot original and compelling?
* Does it have any major organization or structural problems?
* Have you missed any key ingredients or not developed any scenes or topics sufficiently?
* Are the characters original and fully developed?
* Is the dialogue genuine?
* Is there too much description and exposition or interior monologue with too little action and/or dialogue?
* Are there any clichés or stereotypes that weaken your writing?
* Is there enough believability, suspense, action, conflict, and tension?
* Is your book too short or too long, and, if so, why? Should it be part of a series?
* Is there anything else that you, as the author, can do to improve it?