University Style Guide

Copy Editing Marks

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

carat copyediting marks

delete copyediting mark 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.

delete copyediting mark


lower case copyediting mark A stroke through a capital letter means set it in lowercase.

lower case copyediting mark


upper case copyediting mark Three lines under a lowercase letter mean to make it a capital.

upper case copyediting mark


italics copyediting mark One line under a word means to set in italics.

italics copyediting mark


  remove underlining copyediting markA series of strikethroughs means to remove underlining.

remove underlining copyediting mark


bold copyediting mark A wavy line means to set in boldface.

bold copyediting mark


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

close space copyediting mark


new paragraph copyediting mark This mark means begin a new paragraph.

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


insert hyphen opyediting mark Two short parallel lines mean insert a hyphen.

insert hyphen copyediting mark


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

change order copyediting mark


do not make correction copyediting markDots 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.

do not make correction copyediting mark