editorial checklist

THE SCRIBBLES CHECKLIST

Whatever the project, large or small, commercial or editorial, the following checklist serves as our editor’s starting point.

* Spelling errors (including product names, place names, company names and other proper nouns)

* Typographical errors

* Punctuation errors

* Grammatical errors

* Awkward or unclear phrasing

* Clumsy or confusing structure (e.g. flow of copy)

* Consistency of editorial style, e.g. in the use of:

1. ✓  frequently used words
2. ✓American vs. British spelling
3. ✓hyphenation and dashes, capitalisation vs. lower case, acronyms, italics
4. ✓bulleted lists
5. ✓table and figure headings
6. ✓quoted text
7. ✓captions
8. ✓dates, numbers, units of measurement abbreviations

* Correct and consistent presentation of contact details

* Correct and consistent use of registered trademarks

* Cross references throughout document, e.g. page number references, page heading references, picture references

Additionally, we check artwork for:

* Correct reproduction of original copy, with no omissions

* All elements of artwork in place, according to brief

* Text formatting is consistent and in keeping with design template, especially: oheadings, sub-headings and captions; oleading, spacing, typestyles and typesizes, column formatting

* Layout is consistent across batch of artwork produced to the same design template

* Contents list matches up with page headings and page numbers

* Cross references are accurate, e.g. references to headings and page numbers

* Captions match up with images

* Page numbers positioned correctly and all in place

* Credits are included where necessary

* Tables and graphs have been accurately reproduced

* Index matches up with content

We check copy/artwork against:

 * Editorial style guide, if supplied

* Brand guidelines, if supplied (e.g. for correct use of logo, tagline and fonts)

* Client instructions/changes or brief

* Original copy