Code of Practice – section 2

Page owner: Professional standards director

2 Definitions

2.1 Professional roles

2.1.1 'members' This term includes all Advanced Professional Members, Professional Members, Intermediate Members, Entry-Level Members, Retired Members and Corporate Members of the Institute, but excludes Friends of the Institute.

2.1.2 'supplier' This term includes any member of the Institute, or other editor or proofreader, who may be contracted as a supplier of editorial services.

2.1.3 'client' This term is used to define any member of the Institute or other publisher or client, whether in the mainstream publishing industry or other business or organisation, who commissions editorial services and who is responsible for the published product. It also includes students seeking help with written work and authors wanting an editorial professional to check through or comment on a manuscript before or during the publishing process.

2.1.4 References in this code to the relationship between supplier and client are also intended to include, where applicable, the relationship between an employed editor or proofreader and their manager or employer.

2.2 Types of work

2.2.1 'editing' In this code, 'editing' embraces copyediting, proofreading and editorial project management. It is used as a general term for the range of work undertaken by members, in the context of printed or electronic publication.

To avoid confusion, the term 'copyediting' is reserved for the specific task of preparing a text for publication, including technical, stylistic, structural and substantive editing where applicable (see 5.1.3).

2.2.2 'proofreading' This term is used in this code to define a process of identifying typographical, linguistic, coding or positional errors and omissions on a printed or electronic proof, and marking corrections.

2.2.3 'editorial project management' This term is used in this code to describe the carrying out or overseeing of all agreed editorial aspects of a publishing project, which can be from a stage before submission of a manuscript, but not including commissioning, to the final checking stage before submitting the work to a printer or electronic publisher. It will usually include contact with the author(s) and may include responsibility for briefing others.