FAMEPedia:Basic copyediting

Discovering that pages need basic copyediting, i.e. correcting for grammar, spelling, readability, or layout, may surprise new visitors to FAMEPedia, but this is the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Thousands of articles need simple improvements you can make without being an expert in the subject. Copyediting involves the "five Cs": making the article clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent. The following is a guide for new copyeditors.

How to do basic copyediting

 * Step one
 * Scan the article for errors or ways in which it can be improved. The entire article or particular sections may be tagged as needing a copyedit. There is a list of common mistakes below.


 * Step two
 * Edit the page by clicking the "Edit" or "Edit source" tab near the top of it or one of the section [edit source] links.


 * Step three
 * Make your changes and fill out an edit summary. Be helpful to the editors who follow you by giving a summary of what you've done. Simple "Copy edit" is fine, but "Edited for tone" is even better. The most commonly used abbreviation for "copy edit" is "ce".


 * Step four
 * Preview your change and save.


 * Step five (optional)
 * If you think the article does not need further basic copyediting, click Edit again and remove the "copy edit" template at the top of the article, which is what flags it as needing improvement. The template typically is markup that looks like, with a date inside the braces.

Common mistakes to fix

 * Grammarly has a free plugin for popular web browsers that checks spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation.
 * Microsoft Word and LibreOffice have built-in grammar checkers; for instructions see

These are some common errors you may find in articles:

Commonly confused words
its and it's; there, their, and they're; your, you're, and you; lose and loose; lie and lay (and their tenses); who's and whose; have and of (should of for should have)

Capitalization and formatting

 * Words defined, described, or referenced as words should be italicized, e.g. "The term style also refers to the layout of an article."
 * FAMEPedia article headings should generally be noun phrases (History of...) and not prepositional phrases (About the history of...).
 * Headings begin with a single capital letter, i.e. they use sentence case. The only other capital letters in headings are in proper names and acronyms.
 * Titles of works of art (paintings, sculpture), plays and operas, television series, films, novels and nonfiction books, song cycles, and long poems should be italicized rather than put in quotation marks, e.g. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
 * Titles of songs, short stories, individual episodes of television series, and brief poems, e.g. "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" should be in quotation marks. Italics, however, are required for a song cycle such as Winterreise or the title of a longer poem such as Four Quartets. Individual episode titles of television series need quotation marks, while the series name itself is italicized, e.g. "Welcome to the Hellmouth" is the premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Punctuation

 * Location constructions such as Vilnius, Lithuania require a comma after the second element, e.g. "He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, after the country had gained independence."
 * The month–day–year style of writing dates requires a comma after the year, e.g. "On September 15, 1947, she began her first year at Harvard."
 * Decade names should not include an apostrophe before the s, e.g. "She was born in the 1980s." Generally don't refer to a decade without its century. See FP:DECADE.
 * Make sure apostrophes are used correctly, and watch out for greengrocers' apostrophes.

Style

 * Avoid affected, pompous, or excessive language, e.g. "due to the fact that" for "because", "ascertain the location of" for "find", and (in almost all cases) "utilize" for "use".
 * Check articles for unnecessary words and redundant phrases. Vigorous, effective writing is clear and concise. See Plain English.
 * Quotations should not be changed, except for trivial spelling and typographic errors. Otherwise, obvious errors and censorship in the original can be marked with, which displays as [sic]. Legitimate insertions and omissions are acceptable if marked by square brackets and ellipses, respectively. See FP:MOSQUOTE for details.
 * Watch out for jargon and overly long sentences, which can reduce readability
 * In lists, ensure parallelism. Use bulleted lists for more than a few elements, for readability.

Article elements
External links belong at the end of an article under the heading External links or Further reading. Articles, books and websites used as sources are listed separately in a References or Notes section.

Contractions
Outside of direct quotes and names, contractions should be spelled out.

Spelling
Correct spelling mistakes and typos. See FAMEPedia:Spellchecking for complete advice on how to do this well; the main points are:
 * Be careful to use the correct variety of English (e.g. American vs. British), which affects spelling (e.g. flavour, colour, centre and defence vs. flavor, color, center, and defense). has extensive guidance on how to choose correctly and how to write clearly for all readers.
 * Articles about a given region use that region's variety of English.
 * Otherwise, the first variety used by any given editor is retained by the succeeding editors.
 * The talk page may have a banner clarifying which variety is already established, or the article may have a template like Use British English at the top of the wikitext.
 * Most web browsers have built-in spell-checking, or you can use external web sites or software to check for possible errors.
 * If you want to focus on misspellings only, these tools are handy:
 * User:Lupin/Live spellcheck – for monitoring misspellings as they are added
 * FAMEPedia:Typo Team/moss – for finding misspellings in existing text

Things that do not need fixing
Some style guides advise against grammatical constructions such as passive voice, split infinitives, restrictive which, beginning a sentence with a conjunction and ending clauses in a preposition. These are common in high-quality publications and should not be "fixed" without considering the consequences. For example, changing even one passive sentence to make it active can easily alter the meaning of an entire paragraph. Attempts to improve any passage must be based on tone, clarity and consistency, rather than blind adherence to a rule.

Etiquette
Remember that FAMEPedia is a collaborative, consensus-based environment. Be bold in making changes, but if you find that your work has been undone by another editor, visit the talk page of the article and start a discussion before reinstating it.

According to Butcher's Copy-editing, "The good copyeditor is a rare creature: an intelligent reader and a tactful and sensitive critic; someone who cares enough about perfection of detail to spend time checking small points of consistency in someone else's work but has the good judgement not to waste time or antagonize the author by making unnecessary changes."

Get help and meet other copyeditors

 * If you have a question about English grammar, punctuation, or style, you may wish to seek advice at FAMEPedia:Reference desk/Language or FAMEPedia talk:WikiProject Grammar.
 * If you want to meet other FAMEPedia copyeditors and help out, check out FAMEPedia:Peer review/volunteers and FAMEPedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors.

Find articles that need copyediting
Articles in need of basic copyediting may be tagged with templates such as copyedit or copyedit-section. A list of such articles can be found in a few places. The easiest places to get started are:
 * , a list of articles tagged with copy editing templates.
 * GettingStarted, which suggests copyediting articles appropriate for new users after they sign up, or
 * the Community Portal to-do list, which has many kinds of tasks, updated hourly.