How to prepare an edited volume for copyediting: a checklist for volume editors

Edited volumes are among the most common forms of academic publication, and among the most demanding to edit. When several authors write one book, inconsistency arrives on its own: citation style, bibliographic references, the spelling of key terms, the formatting of the text. An experienced copyeditor can bring order to almost any manuscript, but that work takes time, costs more, and carries a real risk that small inconsistencies slip through. Here is how to hand over an edited volume that is ready to be edited.

Agree on shared standards early, while chapters are still being written. Even when you do not yet know which press will take the volume, and therefore which editorial guidelines will apply, a consistently prepared manuscript moves through copyediting and proofreading faster. Adapting it later to a particular series then takes far less work.

There is a second gain, and it is the one that shows in the finished book. When your copyeditor does not have to normalize quotation marks and italics chapter by chapter, that attention goes to the language and the argument instead.

Jessie L. Moore, who has edited collections and writes about the process for the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University, advises volume editors to "Share the publisher's style sheet and any additional guidelines with your chapter authors (often shared via Dropbox or Google Drive, with strategic permission settings), and give them a deadline for reviewing their chapters." She adds: "Set their deadline at one to two weeks before you have to return the documents to the publishing team so that you have time to consolidate feedback and to give the holistic manuscript one more thorough review."¹

We would add one step to that. A publisher style sheet runs to dozens of pages, and most authors skim it. Write a one-page summary of the elements that repeat most often and are hardest to normalize afterwards, and send that alongside.

What presses actually ask of you

Consistency is what most academic publishers require, and they place the responsibility for it on you.

Taylor & Francis state in their manuscript preparation guide that "any suitable referencing style can be used, so long as it is applied consistently throughout the manuscript, including in edited collections". Their guide adds that they have no specific house style and ask for consistency throughout in terms of stylistic choices including spelling and referencing."² Brill puts it almost the same way: "Brill does not have a single house style when it comes to referencing and citations," followed by the rule that matters for a volume editor, "For edited volumes, one style should be used throughout the entire volume, unless otherwise agreed upon with your Brill contact."³ Peter Lang is blunt about it: "If your manuscript is an edited collection, all chapters must be edited in the same style."⁴

Bloomsbury Academic names the job outright: "If you are the editor of a contributed volume, it is your responsibility to check through the entire manuscript, paying particular attention to any chapters by non-native speakers."⁵

So the style sheet is yours to write. The sooner it exists, the less it costs.

Where edited volumes go wrong

Most of a copyeditor's time on a collection goes to problems you could have prevented. Authors arrive with their own punctuation and citation habits, and a concept named one way in your chapter is named another way two chapters later. Chapter structures drift as well, and repair costs more than prevention.

Three problems account for most of the work a copyeditor does on a collection.

• Inconsistent writing and formatting. Every author brings their own habits, which shows up in punctuation, spelling, capitalization, heading levels, list formatting, and citation style.
• Inconsistent vocabulary and terminology. The same concept gets different names, different spellings, or different definitions across chapters. Blue Leaf Editing, a team that specializes in collections, puts the test question directly: "Are terms used consistently across chapters (e.g. 'neoliberalism', 'neo-liberalism', or 'free market reform')?"⁶
• Different chapter structures. Some authors write full introductions and conclusions, others skip both. Some use subheadings, others deliver a continuous block of prose.

All three are cheap to prevent and expensive to repair. The fix is a short, specific checklist, given to authors before they write.

What to standardize before the volume goes out for copyediting

Standardize the few areas that cost copyeditors the most time, and keep the rule set short, because a short list is one your authors will actually follow. One way to build it: edit chapter 1 properly, write down every decision you make, and let that chapter be the model for the rest.

Below are the areas that cause copyeditors the most trouble. We have kept the list short on purpose. The fewer rules there are, the more likely your authors are to follow them.

One practical way to build it, recommended by Blue Leaf Editing: "Pick a chapter (we like starting from the front with Chapter 1) and edit it thoroughly while building a custom style sheet for the volume."⁷ Your first chapter becomes the model for the rest.

0. Agree on the editorial convention

• Ask your commissioning editor at the press which style sheet applies.
• If the publisher is not settled yet, choose a provisional standard and name it in writing. The Chicago Manual of Style and APA both work as defaults.
• Tell your authors which convention you picked, before they start writing.

1. Citation style and bibliographic entries

• Pick one system: notes, or parenthetical author-date citations.
• Fix the shape of a bibliographic entry: order of elements, punctuation, how titles are set (italics or quotation marks, and which quotation marks), how names and publishers are given.
• Decide how quotations are marked: run into the text with quotation marks, or set as block quotations above a stated length. If block quotations appear, format every one of them the same way.
• If the volume uses notes, fix where the note number sits. The Chicago Manual of Style settles this: "Relative to other punctuation, the number follows any punctuation mark except for the dash, which it precedes."⁸
• Brill asks contributors to use footnotes rather than endnotes.⁹ Check whether your press has the same preference before your authors commit.

Lower priority at this stage: typeface, line spacing, paragraph indents.

2. Variety of English

• Choose British or American English and state the choice in the guidelines you circulate.
• Most guidelines say nothing about mixing varieties inside one volume and ask only for consistency. Bloomsbury is explicit that a title uses either UK or US English and that variant forms are not acceptable. Since Taylor & Francis and Brill both ask for internal consistency rather than a fixed house style, the decision comes back to you. Ask your editor and get the answer in writing.
• Watch the spelling systems that travel with the choice. Peter Lang, for American English, asks for "-ize endings (realize, organize) and -yze endings (analyze)."¹⁰

3. Text formatting

• Consistent treatment of chapter titles, author names, and heading levels.
• One format for block quotations.
• One device for emphasis, normally italics. We advise against letterspacing: English-language typesetting does not use it for emphasis.
• Keep bold, underlining, and color out unless they carry structural meaning. Peter Lang says it plainly: "Please do not use bold type or underlining in your manuscript, except to differentiate between subheading levels or to provide instructions about the placement of images."¹¹

Lower priority: the typeface itself.

4. Terminology and transliteration

• Keep a running list of the volume's key terms with the spelling you settled on.
• Apply one spelling for foreign-language terms across all chapters.
• Pick one transliteration system for each non-Latin script in the volume, whether Cyrillic, Greek, or Arabic, and name it in the style sheet.
• Ask authors to use Unicode fonts for non-Latin script. Brill asks for this on its submission checklist, and it saves a painful round of corrections at proof stage.¹²
• Fix the treatment of dates, units of measurement, and decimal separators (point or comma).

5. Abstracts and keywords

• Decide whether every chapter carries an abstract and keywords. Taylor & Francis requires one for every chapter, the introduction and the conclusion included.
• Set the length. Taylor & Francis asks for 100 to 200 words, written in the third person, and "self-contained, without abbreviations, footnotes, or incomplete references."¹³ Brill asks for roughly 200 words.
• Set the number of keywords. Brill asks for 6 to 10.¹⁴
• Keep the form and the placement identical across chapters.

6. Captions for tables, figures, and illustrations

• One caption style throughout.
• One caption pattern, for example "Figure 1. Title" and "Table 1. Description."
• One position relative to the object, for example below figures and above tables.
• Numbering that follows the order of appearance in the text. Brill numbers figures per chapter in edited volumes, as fig. 1.1 and fig. 1.2, so check the convention before your authors number anything.¹⁵
• Collect the permissions as you go. Routledge puts this on the volume editor: a completed permissions declaration form has to arrive with each chapter.¹⁶

Technical parameters of the artwork, such as resolution and file format, can wait until typesetting.

7. Working with your copyeditor

• State the scope of the work: language, structure, bibliography, formatting.
• Mark what must stay untouched, such as an author's deliberate phrasing or specialist terminology.
• Send the copyeditor a sample chapter and your style sheet before the full manuscript arrives.
• Get in touch early, while the volume is still being assembled. Questions answered at that point cost nothing.

The checklist

Before the volume goes out for copyediting, check that:

• ☐ Every chapter uses the same citation and bibliography style
• ☐ Quotation marks, notes, and punctuation follow one written rule
• ☐ One variety of English is chosen and stated (British or American)
• ☐ Heading levels and text formatting match across chapters
• ☐ Every chapter has an abstract and keywords in the agreed format
• ☐ Terminology, dates, and transliteration follow the agreed standard
• ☐ Non-Latin script is set in Unicode fonts
• ☐ Figure and table captions use one pattern and are numbered in order
• ☐ Permissions for figures and quoted material are collected
• ☐ A model chapter or a style sheet exists and every author has a copy
• ☐ Anything you were unsure about has been raised with your copyeditor

Eleven boxes ticked before submission save weeks at proof stage. If you would like the volume read by people who do this for a living, send us a sample chapter and request a quote.