Top Ten Websites for Editing

Being an editor means I’m no stranger to multiple tabs crowding the web browser on my computer—in fact I usually have several tab-filled windows open at once, organized by topic or project! Editing is all about looking things up: confirm grammar rules before you apply them (ending a sentence with a preposition is actually fine), check the spelling if you’re anything less than 100 percent positive, look up proper nouns and names, confirm factual details, apply the correct style guide, and double check quote sources.

Here are the top ten websites I use while copyediting and proofreading:

1. Merriam-Webster

   Merriam-Webster is the standard dictionary used in book publishing, and its online version is completely free (and easy) to use. Look up a word to confirm its spelling and/or definition. Scroll down to find synonyms, rhyming words, etymology, and—if you’re lucky—related articles like “Is ‘Irregardless’ a Real Word?”

2. The Chicago Manual of Style

   Or another style guide like AP, MLA, or APA. Most style guides require a subscription, but you can find good information on Purdue OWL for free. Style guides are not just for citations and references; CMOS, being the standard style guide for book publishing, has information on book formatting (including the content of front matter and back matter), grammar conventions, punctuation, writing numbers, formatting dialogue, and so much more! For those with a CMOS subscription, the website makes it easy to search the guide and their many FAQs.

3. Encyclopedia Britannica

   If you need a reliable source to confirm whether the Arno River indeed flooded Florence, Italy, in 1966, Britannica is a great place to check (yes, the flood was in 1966). You can use Wikipedia to confirm basic facts, too, but with a little prudence—make sure it has a proper and reliable citation.

4. Conscious Style Guide

   Copyediting should always involve addressing biased language and using inclusive terminology. There are a myriad of resources for conscious language, but a great place to start is the Conscious Style Guide, which is now also a book! In addition, I use the Radical Copyeditor’s Transgender Style Guide, the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, and the Native Governance Center’s Style Guide.

5. Title Case Converter

   This free, easy-to-use tool will convert your title or heading to title case, according to your preferred style. It’s not perfect, but this is the best one I’ve come across. Some title case rules are tricky—like whether you capitalize the second word in a hyphenated term or prepositions that are used adverbially or adjectivally.

6. Google Ngram

   This tool compares how words have been used in printed books over time. You can use it to answer questions about alternate spellings or phrasings. What’s more common: canceled or cancelled? Kitty corner or catty corner? If Merriam-Webster hasn’t helped, maybe Google Ngram can.

7. Parts-of-speech

   Enter text into this tool to automatically tag the parts of speech. This can help you break down a tricky sentence and check its grammar. It’s also a wonderful tool for practicing basic grammar.

8. Time and Date

   If a story says something happened under a full moon on Wednesday, April 24, 1971, there better have actually been a full moon that day. Use time and date for this kind of fact-checking. (There was a full moon on April 24, 1971, but it was not a Wednesday!)

9. Quote Investigator

   There’s nothing worse than finding the perfect quote for your story, or to include as an epigraph, and then attributing it to the wrong person (because of bad research)! Quote Investigator is one of the more reliable tools on the internet for confirming quote sources, and there’s a lot of bad information out there.

10. Acronyms and Abbreviations

    This website is an excellent and comprehensive directory and search engine for acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. You’ll still want to define that initialism for your readers, but look it up here first!

There are many more resources I use for specific projects: the historical thesaurus is great for historical fiction books, Forebears helps with surnames, USGS maintains a database of geographic names, the USDA plant database can be very helpful, Geodatos can calculate the distance between two cities or locate antipodes, and I even found a glossary of Tudor and Stuart words for one project!

Question everything and confirm edits using only trustworthy sources.