Introduction to Editorial Skills: Copy-Editing and Proofreading

How the course is delivered

The course consists of six x 2.25-hour sessions including breaks, each a mixture of delivery and interaction using Zoom breakout rooms and other online tools. There will be a 45-minute exercise set to complete between the sessions, and a 45-minute break. The course will run on from 9.30am to 2.00pm on each day.

You will need access to a computer or laptop with a camera and microphone and with Microsoft Word and either Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (which is free) or Adobe Acrobat Professional installed. To join the course, you  will need to activate a Zoom account. This takes two minutes and does not require any payment. It is purely for administrative purposes.

Any information to be completed beforehand will be sent via email.

If you have any concerns about technical requirements or access please contact us on courses@publishingtrainingcentre.co.uk or telephone (+44) 020 8874 2718.

Delegate feedback

“An excellent course. Sarah was a great teacher. I liked the mix of teaching and hands-on exercises which gave the chance to try things out immediately. We could ask lots of questions and give feedback. It was really good to split the course up into three half-day sessions as virtual courses can be extremely intense.” Axelos delegate

“I learned to pay attention to details and take a holistic approach to editing.” Assistant Professor, Banaras Hindu University

“Really enjoyed the course. The teaching and support was great, especially considering the circumstances. I’ve gained an understanding of PDF and BSI mark up, and the roles of a proofreader and copy-editor, and have an improved strategy for approaching proofreading and copy-editing.” Aspiring publisher (unemployed)

“Caroline was an excellent teacher: clear, courteous and sensitive to our needs as learners. I’ve gained a deeper knowledge of the copy-editing and proofreading process.” Author, editor and freelance journalist

“I enjoyed it a lot; the teacher is very passionate, friendly and open and made the most tedious proofreading elements most fascinating. I've become more organised and consistent in my own work.”  Writer, Powiesciologia Ltd

“I really enjoyed the course. It refreshed the knowledge I already had and I learnt new skills, particularly in English. The adaptation to Zoom was good.”  Job seeker delegate

About the tutor(s)

The tutors devised and fully updated the course in 2020. One tutor will deliver all three morning sessions of a course. 

In an in-house career that took her to Berlin, London, Oxford and Cambridge, Caroline Drake worked on a wide range of academic books, journals and illustrated trade titles. She was trained at Blackwell and Cambridge University Press, where, as senior subeditor then copy-editorial manager, she in turn trained copy-editors and proofreaders for fifteen years. She updated Butcher’s Copy-editing, with a colleague, for the fourth edition.

Now freelance, Caroline enjoys helping authors to get things right, first time. She has created and taught courses for a variety of clients, including publishers, educational organisations, the CIEP and the reporters of the Scottish Parliament.

Since 1999, Sarah Sodhi has proofed, tagged, bound, corrected, edited, managed, commissioned, subbed, scheduled, estimated and produced a great deal of content – from interactive, multi-media resources to marketing leaflets, from monthly magazines to 900-page medical tomes.

Starting her career at a small medical publisher in Oxford, Sarah produced medical textbooks, journals and a bi-monthly magazine. She then moved into the public sector to work for an adult education charity, introducing formal scheduling procedures, progress-chasing systems and detailed budgets. After this, she immersed herself in the education sector, editing and managing digital and print resources for primary, secondary and adult education publishers.

Caroline Knight began her career in publishing at Penguin Books in 1989, when she joined Editorial 2, the department dedicated to copy-editing. She has been a PTC tutor since 1996 and a freelancer since 2010.

Caroline became managing editor of Allen Lane The Penguin Press in 1995 before moving to Weidenfeld & Nicolson Illustrated in 1997. She lived in Greece, working freelance and tutoring at the PTC, from 2000 to 2003, when she became managing editorial director at William Heinemann, an imprint of the Random House group. Five years later, she moved to Atlantic Books, where she stayed until 2010 when she moved to rural Kent and rejoined the freelance community.

She has worked with Alastair Campbell, Vince Cable, David Willetts, Margaret Drabble and the late Herman Leonard, as well as a wide variety of others less famous. She enjoys editing both fiction and non-fiction, with a leaning towards history and politics. She lives on the edge of the North Downs with her husband, three children, a dog, six hens and tens of thousands of bees.