No matter how comprehensively researched and how well written, all documents can benefit from copyediting to ensure that the writer's ideas are communicated in the best possible way.

CARSTENS COMMUNICATIONS offers professional book and copy editing for mainstream fiction and nonfiction, technical documents, and scholarly articles and manuscripts. Multiple levels of assistance are available:

General Editing for grammar, spelling, punctuation and other mechanics of style; marking head levels and insertion points for art; pointing out repetition of words, phrases, or information; and noting inconsistencies in content. Unless otherwise requested, general editing is done to the Chicago Manual of Style standard.

Substantive Editing includes all of the general editing tasks, but goes deeper, clarifying and/or reorganizing documents or manuscripts for content and structure. Changes may be suggested or drafted by the editor and may include several phases as the editor and author work toward a more polished final product.

Manuscript Evaluations may include either of the levels of editing, or may be simply a close reading of your manuscript and a written evaluation of how effectively it is organized or delivers your message, with suggestions about where to go next to move it to a higher level. For fiction, an evaluation may include such aspects as character, scene, and plot development. For nonfiction, credibility and resources may be addressed.

Click on the link to see a sampling of recent projects.