How does one pursue a career in copy editing?

The best training for copy-editing is OJT and mentoring. If possible, you should try to get work at a publishing house. For an entry level position, they usually give you some sort of test to see what aptitude you might have for the work, and then give you training. However, increasingly the opportunities in this field are freelance, and not full-time permanent positions at publishing houses. Indeed, unless you are in a publishing center such as any or Boston, full-time positions may be almost impossible to get. This creates a chicken and egg problem: One cannot get work without having had experience, but one cannot get experience without having had work. If you are in this bind, then any kind of certification or training you can get will be helpful. One also cannot stress enough the need to start connecting with authors, editors, and people in the publishing industry, as the vast majority of work in this field is unadvertised. I also agree with Stephanie Fysh's suggestion about not working for free. While it might be worth the trouble to do one or two small projects at a low price for a friend or relative just to get something to put on your resume, there is a whole underclass of writers and editors who are selling themselves short by offering their services for free or at very low rates all the time. They may think that they are building a career that way, but they are only hurting themselves. In publishing, a serious client will pay a good wage for your labor. One sees on Internet message boards people complaining about not getting paid for a job or being mistreated by a client, and it is nearly all over jobs paying less than $40. However, people who make a serious career from this work generally get paid much more than this unless it is for a very small job, and they generally get paid on time, because they are working for people who are equally as serious about publishing as they are.

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A copy is a term used for a writing piece in media. It can be in advertising and in the newspaper or magazine as well. The copy/content/article is being made by content writers and is being checked and proofread by the copy editors. In the hierarchy of the organizational set of a media house, a copy writer may be a person at the middle or executive level or a senior level as the editor of the newspaper or a particular segment or pages of the paper. The way one can pursue a career in copy editing is based on the roles and requisites mentioned below: Language skills Flawless grammar Knowledge of Connotations and denotations of words Rich and mature vocabulary Creative as well as professional writing skills Skilled in the use of 'style sheet’ of the publication (style sheet is the set of vocab used in that particular organisation). A course in copy editing, content writing or a post-graduation in language (English) or even in journalism and mass communication can help. The candidate must pursue an internship to sharpen the skills that will lead to getting a job as copy editor.

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1. Get trained. There are postgraduate training programmes in editing in many colleges and universities, some of which are offered part-time or online. 2. Get connected. There are also many organi]sations of editors. They provide everything from further training (including in business skills) to mutual support (sometimes you really need to ask another editor a question) to assist in finding clients. Some even have mentorship programmes. 3. Start off on the right foot. Don't get trapped in a cycle that undervalues your training by offering your labor free. You want to have a career, not a hobby.

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Copy editing is simply making a raw data or an information refined and to be used for publication. To do so, they need to have a good understanding, language proficiency and proofreading skills. Copy editors need to have at least a Bachelor's degree in journalism, English or related fields. Journalism programmes allow the student to develop editing, writing, fact checking, page layout, web design and proofreading skills. While English related degree would improve their syntax, accent and language skills. Copy-editors and proofreaders generally begin by editing text at a fairly basic level before progressing to more complex editing and restructuring, which is more highly paid. With experience, freelance copy-editors and proofreaders can begin to focus on a preferred area of work and on a particular subject area, They can find jobs in many publishing companies, magazines, newspapers, etc. Pay scale: Initially, one can expect a salary of 2-3 Lacs per annum. As this field is a place for more skilled and active workers, one can earn more only with work experience.

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Copy editing isn't nearly as great a career as readers of this site might believe it to be and I'm trying pretty hard not to lead readers to believe it's a great career. Then again, I find it hard to imagine doing anything else. If you think you might feel the same way (and you like the idea of working from 3 till midnight), read on. In this field, a lot of career-advice questions are there from people who aren't able to ask such a question without committing two or three basic errors. So allow me to begin with the most important piece of advice anyone will ever offer: Be good. Damn good. (More on this later.). I suppose my path towards a copy-editing career was about as straightforward as it gets. I spent four years getting a Bachelor's degree in journalism at a college known for its journalism programme. I got a job with the college newspaper as soon as I could, and I got a summer internship (actually, two summer internships) at a major metropolitan daily - which hired me right after graduation. I paid my dues on the reporting side, and then I became an editor. If you're just starting college (or still in college mode, no matter what your age) and you want to be a copy editor when you grow up, make 'internship' your mantra. If the place that hires you as an intern likes you, that place will hire you full-time. If it doesn't fit you quite nicely, you'll have invaluable experience and an invaluable addition to your resume. Nothing you learn in a journalism class will be anywhere near as valuable as an actual experience which brings me to the other part of my experience you should strive to emulate: Join the school paper. At the University of Arizona, my alma mater, the paper is an independent entity supported by advertising revenue. I learned a lot by actually doing that job, and that's a heck of a good way to learn. I got no class credit, but I got a respectable paycheck. Even if you end UPAT a college where the paper is more of a J-department organ, the experience is still the thing. Get it. The question of whether you should major in journalism is more difficult. A lot of very good colleges don't even offer journalism as a major, and most newspapers would't think twice about hiring a non-major if that non-major had significant school-paper and internship experience. The journalism degree is a more straight-ahead path to a journalism job, but those with the initiative to pursue non-classroom journalism opportunities might be more successful.

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