Wordsmithing, Part 1: Line editing & rewriting

This link will take you to the first of five images. Use the right-hand arrow to see images two through five. Following up on this post, these screen captures show the results of basic before-and-after line editing using the compare function in MS Word. The original text that was eliminated shows strikeout and is highlighted in gray. New text is underscored, although a fair amount of this text was Brian's which I moved from elsewhere in the chapter. Remaining original text is plain. Brian now has the final from this process and may make additional edits.

For anyone unfamiliar with the book-editing process, let me note that after Brian and I have completely finished our work, this text is still going to be copyedited and proofread for basic grammatical and typographical errors. So, as an editor, while I do pay some attention to these as a matter of course, they are not top-of-mind matters for me at this stage of the process. Knowing that others are going to do a final cleaning up of the text frees me to focus on more strategic communication goals.