Good writing can prevent many of the problems that can arise in scientific writing, but many issues of style and consistency still need to be considered. This is where editing comes in. This section provides some basic background on the craft of editing.

Many excellent general resources are available for Australian editors – see Resources for examples. Clear language and Making content accessible will help you solve common problems and create effective documents. For information on making scientific data visually appealing, see Showing. Terms to watch out for can help with commonly misused words and phrases.

A comprehensive edit usually involves two or three stages of editing, depending on the level of changes needed in the publication. Each stage focuses on different aspects of the content. The three stages are:

• substantive edit
• copyedit
• verification edit or proofread.