What is copyediting? Have a look at the page on copy editing and the basic copyediting guide.
General information
- Welcome to the Guild of Copy Editors home page.
- New to copy editing and need help? Check out our how-to guides.
- You can copy edit articles on our requests page, or submit an article for editing.
- Our mailing list can be found here. Signing up for the mailing list enables delivery of our bi-monthly drive updates, drive invitations, and other announcements.
Quick links
Goals and scope
We aim to improve the articles in the English Wikipedia by dealing with articles tagged for copy editing using {{copy edit}}, and by maintaining the category of articles needing copy edit. We don't cover requests for review; they're handled by the folks at Peer Review, although we do take specific requests for copy editing.
Current focus
- To keep the number of tagged articles trending downwards
- To promptly fulfill special requests
- To organize backlog elimination drives to encourage active participation in the Guild, and to reduce the copy edit backlog to a manageable level
- To attract new members and improve our level of expertise
Top 10 reasons to join the Guild of Copy Editors
- Improve your skills in the craft of copy editing
- Read interesting articles that you might not normally look at
- Gain a significant amount of Wikipedia editing experience
- You get to remove {{copy edit}} tags, you can use a special tag while copy editing to prevent interruptions, and you can leave a tag on the article's talk page with your name on it after you finish
- Take pleasure from correcting horrible spelling and grammar
- Receive gratitude, praise and more from those asking for help
- The backlog gives you a ready-made "To Do" list
- Make new friends at GoCE and beyond
- Participate in contests and receive barnstars
- Help make a real difference by improving Wikipedia
Selecting articles for copy edit by category
If you would like to search for articles in a specific genre to copy edit, there's a way! Go to catscan. Don't let the complex-looking screen fool you; it's actually easy.
- Set the Depth to 5.
- Place the names of two or more categories in the "Categories" box. For example, to find articles that are in both the category "Wikipedia articles needing copy edit" and the category "Books" place them both in this box, one category per line.
- Go to the bottom of the screen and press the "Do it!" button.
- Voila! The example search produced a list of 348 articles about books that are tagged for copy editing and took 44 seconds to execute.
- Set Depth to 5.
- Place "Wikipedia articles needing copy edit" in the Category box.
- Tick off both Article and Talk in the Namespaces boxes.
- Place the template of the wikiproject in the Templates field and tick off "Use talk pages instead."
- Wow! The example search found 77 articles on Pakistan that need copy edits and took 5 seconds to execute.
Progress chart
Monthly progress chart
Date |
Number of
articles |
Change from
previous month |
December 31, 2009 |
8,002 |
+156 |
January 31, 2010 |
8,036 |
+34 |
February 28, 2010 |
8,025 |
−9 |
March 31, 2010 |
8,111 |
+86 |
April 30, 2010 |
8,323 |
+212 |
May 31, 2010 |
7,563 |
−760 |
June 30, 2010 |
7,582 |
+19 |
July 31, 2010 |
6,293 |
−1289 |
August 31, 2010 |
6,300 |
+7 |
September 30, 2010 |
5,575 |
−725 |
October 31, 2010 |
5,601 |
+26 |
November 30, 2010 |
4,974 |
−627 |
December 31, 2010 |
5,151 |
+177 |
January 31, 2011 |
4,518 |
−633 |
February 28, 2011 |
4,672 |
+154 |
March 31, 2011 |
3,850 |
−822 |
April 30, 2011 |
4,158 |
+308 |
May 31, 2011 |
3,737 |
−421 |
June 30, 2011 |
3,953 |
+216 |
July 31, 2011 |
3,615 |
−338 |
August 31, 2011 |
3,947 |
+332 |
September 30, 2011 |
3,801 |
−146 |
October 31, 2011 |
4,054 |
+253 |
November 30, 2011 |
3,822 |
−232 |
December 31, 2011 |
4,152 |
+330 |
January 31, 2012 |
3,983 |
−169 |
February 29, 2012 |
4,167 |
+184 |
March 31, 2012 |
3,667 |
−500 |
April 30, 2012 |
3,793 |
+126 |
May 31, 2012 |
2,627 |
−1166 |
June 30, 2012 |
2,805 |
+178 |
July 31, 2012 |
2,306 |
−499 |
August 31, 2012 |
2,653 |
+347 |
September 30, 2012 |
2,341 |
−312 |
October 31, 2012 |
2,791 |
+450 |
November 30, 2012 |
2,690 |
−101 |
December 31, 2012 |
3,005 |
+315 |
January 31, 2013 |
2,894 |
−111 |
February 28, 2013 |
3,124 |
+230 |
March 31, 2013 |
2,835 |
−289 |
April 30, 2013 |
3,061 |
+226 |
May 31, 2013 |
2,484 |
−577 |
June 30, 2013 |
2,723 |
+239 |
July 31, 2013 |
2,817 |
+94 |
August 31, 2013 |
3,186 |
+369 |
September 30, 2013 |
3,152 |
−34 |
October 31, 2013 |
3,104 |
−48 |
November 30, 2013 |
2,631 |
−473 |
December 31, 2013 |
2,922 |
+291 |
January 31, 2014 |
2,777 |
−145 |
February 28, 2014 |
2,915 |
+138 |
There are 2,981 articles currently in the backlog
You can help!
-
- Started: May 1, 2010 with 8,323 articles
- It currently contains 2,981 articles.
|
64.2% completed (calculated)
|
Useful links
- The Manual of Style. This is the main document defining Wikipedia's "house style". Familiarity with it is essential when editing articles to become Featured Article Candidates (FAC) or Featured List Candidates (FLC). It is very large, and most editors will prefer a more gentle introduction.
- Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style. This is it. It is a short and very readable introduction covering the most important points, with many links to documents which amplify each point.
- Wikipedia:Basic copyediting.
- Comma#Uses in English. The most misunderstood punctuation mark explained.
External watchlist
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