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The Editors
Book publishers never read past your first mistake. . .
Editing should be the first order of business AFTER the writing has been completed. Your first draft is NOT publishable. No matter who you are - or how good you think you are - or how smart other people tell you you are - no one's first draft is ready for publication! If you think so, get over yourself - join reality - be mad at me for saying so - but no one is that good - no, not even you!
You should have a 'style book' next to you during your writing process. If you don't know what a 'style book' is - learn. Go buy one and use it. As a reference book, it will be invaluable and you'll need less time in the edit process if you correct your own mistakes. If you can't afford a style book, get a best seller off your shelf and see if you can't find an example in the book to answer your question. This is especially helpful with the punctuation around dialogue, as those are the most common grammatical mistakes made.
When authors ask for editing to be done on their manuscript, there are several ways to do it, because there are several objectives to be accomplished.
The grammatical edit:
Gets rid of the grammatical errors! Makes sure that the punctuation around dialogue is correct. Checks if the subject of the sentence and verb of the sentence agree (singular vs. plural). Checks the proper use of Me, Myself and I in sentences.
Checks other very common grammatical mistakes that any high school English teacher would catch. This edit is about right and wrong.
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