Copyediting Marks

A caret shows where an additional or corrected or substituted letter, word, or phrase is to be inserted in or above the line.

 

A horizontal line delete mark is made through a phrase, sentence, or paragraph. A vertical line delete mark is made through a single letter or mark of punctuation. The letter or punctuation to be deleted may also be circled with the delete mark.

 

A stroke through a capital letter means set it in lowercase.

 

Three lines under a lowercase letter mean to make it a capital.

 

One line under a word means to set in italics.

 

A series of strike throughs means to remove underlining.

 

A wavy line means to set in boldface.

 

This mark means to close up space. It's often used with the delete mark.

 

This mark means begin a new paragraph.

 

A straight line between letters or characters means to add one space. A space mark (#) means the same thing.

 

Two short parallel lines mean insert a hyphen.

 

This mark means to change the order of—or transpose—letters, words, or phrases.

 

Dots under a word or passage mean leave the word or passage as it was before the correction. The word stet ("let it stand") is often written in the margin.