Preparing for Editors Canada Professional Certification

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Before you attempt any of the certification exams, we recommend that you have at least five years of professional experience at editing a wide variety of documents.

This isn’t a rule—it’s a guideline. If you’ve worked part time as an editor for six years, that may not be long enough. If you’ve been working full-time for four years and feel that you’ve experienced enough different editing situations to pass one of the exams, you may be ready.

It’s important to have a certain breadth of experience. Like many editors, you probably don’t work in all four skill areas—proofreading, copy editing, stylistic editing and structural editing—which means you may not have enough experience to pass all four exams.

Be sure your experience is relevant to the exam(s) you plan to write.

And be sure your experience includes more than one medium. If all you know is magazine publishing, for example, you need to find a way to broaden your knowledge so you also know about books, websites, and corporate and government documents, or you’ll be disadvantaged on the exams.

Once you have the recommended level of experience, it’s critical that you prepare carefully for each exam you write.

Most successful candidates report that they have studied and practised intensively in the months leading up to the exams.

Video overview

Watch our interactive video to learn everything you ever wanted to know about the Editors Canada certification exams, which provides valuable tips on how to prepare for the exams. Click on a topic that interests you, or work through each section in order. For even more information, visit the certification page or contact the certification steering committee at info@editors.ca.

Preparation quick links

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Study resources

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Study tips

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Practise taking the exam

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Checklist

Study resources

The first step in preparing for a certification exam is to do an in-depth review of the standards that will be tested, assessing your ability to apply them.

Editors Canada offers two resources to help with this:

Professional Editorial Standards (2024)

Professional Editorial Standards sets out the editorial standards that are tested by Editors Canada certification. You can review it online and download it at no charge.

If you plan to take a certification exam, it’s essential that you know these standards.

By carefully reviewing Professional Editorial Standards and identifying how each standard does or doesn’t relate to your work, you can identify gaps in your knowledge and skill set.

Certification Test Preparation Guides

Working through the guide for the exam you plan to write is the best way to review the standards and identify gaps in your knowledge and skills.

It also helps you practise for taking a timed exam in an invigilated setting.

There are four Test Preparation Guides, one for each exam:

  • Proofreading Test Preparation Guide
  • Copy Editing Test Preparation Guide
  • Stylistic Editing Test Preparation Guide
  • Structural Editing Test Preparation Guide

You can order each guide as a download.

Software resources

Make sure you have the correct software

For the Structural, Stylistic and Copy Editing exams, you’ll need to have Microsoft Word installed on your computer. For the Proofreading exam, you’ll need at minimum the free Adobe PDF reader, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. Download it here. (if you have the subscription versions–Standard DC or Pro DC–that’s fine!). 

For the Proofreading exam, know how to mark up PDF files

As of 2021, the Proofreading certification exam will be offered on PDF (no longer on paper).You’ll need to be familiar with using Adobe’s annotations tools (inserting and deleting text; highlighting; and inserting comments in the form of “sticky notes”). We’ve put together a short guide on using the annotations tools:

Download How to Annotate PDF Files.

More study options

Once you’ve identified the areas you need to learn more about, you can choose from a number of study methods. Here are nine to get you started.

Take Editors Canada branch seminars and college or university courses.

Look for those that develop the skills specified in Professional Editorial Standards (2024), particularly the ones you need to work on. Past candidates have found courses in grammar and punctuation particularly helpful.

Study books that cover specific concepts, including:

  1. Books About Grammar
  • The Perfect English Grammar Workbook, by Lisa McLendon (Zephyros, 2017)
  • The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, by Bryan A. Garner (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
  • Practical Grammar, A Canadian Writer’s Resource, by Maxine Ruvinsky, Third Edition (Oxford University Press, 2014)
  • Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea (Penguin, 2014)
  • Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose, by Constance Hale (Three Rivers Press, 2013)
  • Grammatically Correct, by Anne Stilman, Second Edition (Penguin Random House, 2010)
  • Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, by Patricia T. 
  • O’Conner, Third Edition (New York: Riverhead Books (Penguin), 2009)
  • Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences, by Janis Bell (W.W. Norton, 2009)
  • The Great Grammar Challenge: Test Yourself on Punctuation, Usage, Grammar—and More, by the 
  • Editors of EEI Press (EEI Press, 2006)
  • The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon (Pantheon Books, 1993)
  1. Books About Punctuation
  • Eats More, Shoots & Leaves: Why, ALL Punctuation Marks Matter! by Lynne Truss and Bonnie Timmons (Putnam, 2019)
  • The Best Punctuation Book, Period, by June Casagrande (Random House, 2014)
  • Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss (Gotham Books, 2009)
  • The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed, Expanded and Revised Edition, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003)
  1. Books About Usage
  • Garner’s Modern English Usage, Fifth Edition, by Bryan A. Garner (Oxford University Press, 2022)
  • The Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage, Second Edition, Reissue, by Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine (Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Fourth Edition, edited by Jeremy Butterfield (Oxford University Press, 2015)
  • The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations, Revised Edition, by Morton Benson, Evelyn Benson, and Robert Ilson (John Benjamins, 2009)
  • Essential English Idioms: An Up-to-Date Guide to the Idioms of British English, by Richard A. Spears and Betty Kirkpatrick (NTC Publishing Group, 1999)
  • Canadian A–Z of Grammar, Spelling, & Punctuation, edited by Katherine Barber and Robert Pontisso (Oxford University Press, 2007)
  1. Books About Style
  • The Associated Press Stylebook, Fifty-Sixth Edition (Basic Books, 2022)
  • The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition, by William Strunk and E.B. White (Independently published, 2022)
  • MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Ninth Edition (Modern Language Association, 2021)
  • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (American Psychological Association, 2020)
  • The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, Forty-Seventh Edition (Basic Books, 2019)
  • Elements of Indigenous Style, by Gregory Younging (Brush Education, 2018) 
  • Editing Canadian English, Third Edition (Editors’ Association of Canada, 2015)
  • The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers, Seventeenth Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2017)
  • A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, Ninth Edition, by Kate Turabian, Wayne C. Booth, et al. (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
  • Yes, I Could Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk, by Bill Walsh (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013)
  • The Canadian Press Stylebook: A Guide for Writers and Editors, Seventeenth Edition (Canadian Press, 2013)
  • The Canadian Press Caps and Spelling, Twentieth Edition, edited by James McCarten (Canadian Press, 2012)
  • The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing, Revised and Expanded (Dundurn Press with Public Works and Government Services Canada, 1997)—updated at Termium Plus (Government of Canada, Language Portal of Canada)
  • The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market, by John R. Kohl (SAS Publishing, 2008)
  • The Oxford Guide to Style, by R. M. Ritter (Oxford University Press, 2002)
  • MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, Third Edition (Modern Language Association, 2008)
  • New Hart’s Rules: The Oxford Style Guide, Second Edition (Oxford University Press, 2014)
  • The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: The Official Style Guide Used by the Writers and Editors of the World’s Most Authoritative News Organization, Fifth Edition (Three Rivers Press, 2015)
  1. Books (or chapters within or websites) About Proofreading
  1. Books About Editing and Publishing
  • Editing Canadian English: A Guide for Editors, Writers, and Everyone Who Works With Words, Third Edition, edited by Karen Virag (Editors’ Association of Canada, 2015)
  • Editorial Niches: A Companion to Editing Canadian English, Third Edition, edited by Anne-Louise Mahoney (Editors’ Association of Canada, 2015)
  • The Complete Canadian Book Editor, by Leslie Vermeer (Brush Education, 2016)
  • Book Design Made Simple: A Step-By-Step Guide to Designing and Typesetting Your Own Book 
  • Using Adobe InDesign, by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collette (12 Pines Press, 2016)
  • Style: Lessons In Clarity and Grace, Twelfth Edition, by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup (Pearson, 2016)
  • Editors, Scholars, and the Social Text, edited by Darcy Cullen (University of Toronto Press, 2012)
  • Just My Type: A Book About Fonts, by Simon Garfield (Gotham Books, 2011)
  • The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications With Exercises and Answer Keys, Third Edition, by Amy Einsohn (University of California Press, 2011)
  • The Editor’s Companion, Second Edition, by Janet Mackenzie (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
  • The Editor’s Guide to Working with Authors, by Barbara Sjoholm (Rainforest Press, 2010)
  • Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers, by Scott Norton (University of Chicago Press, 2009)
  • The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago, by Carol Fisher Saller (University of Chicago Press, 2009)
  • The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself, by Susan Bell (Norton, 2008; ebook 2020)
  • Butcher’s Copy-Editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-Editors and Proofreaders, by 
  • Judith Butcher, Caroline Drake and Maureen Leech (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
  • The Copyeditor’s Guide to Substance & Style: Learn How to Find and Fix Basic Errors in Text and Graphics, in Print and Online, Third Edition, by the Editors of EEI Press (EEI Press, 2006)
  • The Longman Guide to Technical Editing, by Carolyn D. Rude (Pearson/Longman, 2006)
  • The Elements of Typographic Style, Fourth Edition, by Robert Bringhurst (Hartley & Marks, 2019) 
  • Editors on Editing, Revised Third Edition, by Gerald Gross (Grove Press, 1993)
  • Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing, by Claire Kehrwald Cook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006) 
  1. Books About Writing and Plain Language
  • Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris (Norton, 2016)
  • Writing for the Web, Fifth Edition, by Crawford Kilian (Self-Counsel Press, 2015)
  • Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law, by Joseph Kimble (Carolina Academic Press, 2012)
  • Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, Second Edition, by Janice Redish (Elsevier, 2012)
  • Plain Language in Plain English, edited by Cheryl Stephens (PlainLanguageWizardry.com, 2010)
  • The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, by Steven Pinker (Viking, 2014)
  • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Tenth Anniversary Edition, by Stephen King (Scribner, 2010)
  • When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse, by Ben Yagoda (Random House, 2008)
  • On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser (Collins, 2021)
  • The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition, by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White (Longman, 1999)
  • Style: Lessons In Clarity and Grace, Twelfth Edition, by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup (Pearson, 2016)
  • The Elephants of Style: A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English, by Bill Walsh (McGraw-Hill Education, 2004)
  • Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon’s Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print—And How to Avoid Them, by Bill Walsh (McGraw-Hill Education, 2000)
  • Yes, I Could Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk, by Bill Walsh (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013)
  • Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Usage, by Theodore M. Bernstein (Centro Books, 2006, ebook 2013)
  • It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences, by June Casagrande (Ten Speed Press, 2010)
  1. Books About Copyright
  • Canadian Copyright Law, Fourth Edition, by Lesley Ellen Harris (Wiley, 2014)
  • Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide , Second Edition, by Laura J. Murray and Samuel E. Trosow (Between the Lines, 2013)
  1. Websites on Writing and Language
  1. Dictionary Websites

Review all of the books you plan to use during the exam, and study at least one of the style guides in depth

 During the proofreading, copy editing, or structural editing exams, you are allowed to use one dictionary, Editing Canadian English, and up to three style guides. During the stylistic editing exam, you are allowed to use one dictionary, Editing Canadian English, and either two style guides and a thesaurus or three style guides. You may want to add tabs or sticky notes to sections you refer to regularly. Examples of style guides include:

  • The Chicago Manual of Style
  • The Canadian Style
  • The Canadian Press Stylebook and its companion, CP Caps & Spelling (together, these count as one style guide)
  • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
  • MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
  • MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing
  • New Oxford Style Manual
  • The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage

Find a study partner or join a study group

It’s helpful to meet regularly with colleagues to review Professional Editorial Standards and to work through Meeting Professional Editorial Standards and the Test Preparation Guides. You can improve your test-taking skills by working on the practice tests and then reviewing one another’s work. You may also benefit from reviewing and discussing the sample pass and fail responses in the Test Preparation Guides.

Practise marking up text with standard copy editors’ and/or proofreaders’ marks

You’ll find them in The Chicago Manual of Style and The Canadian Style.

Complete tests and quizzes on punctuation, grammar and usage

You’ll find these kinds of tests on the internet.

Practise editing and proofreading all kinds of documents

Work quickly, to build up your speed. Set time limits for yourself. You’ll only have three hours to write the actual test, so make sure you’re good at working carefully and quickly.

Review tips and strategies for taking tests

This is particularly important if you haven’t written a test or exam for some time. Past candidates have found it helpful to update their test-taking strategies, especially those related to time management.

Study tips

  • Start studying several months before the exam. Six months should be enough time to prepare well.
  • Make sure you know the standard proofreaders’ or copy editors’ marks and terms (e.g., “run over,” “run back”).
  • Study the standards for proofreading, copy editing, stylistic editing or structural editing in Professional Editorial Standards.
  • This will show you what types of tasks you need to be able to perform, as well as what’s outside the standards being tested—and therefore what you shouldn’t do on the exam.
  • Work through the exercises for your exam topic in Meeting Professional Editorial Standards, using the answer keys to carefully evaluate your work.
  • This can help you learn a lot about how you’ll be evaluated on the real exam.
  • If you’re unaccustomed to creating and using style sheets, for example, you’ll find out what goes into a good style sheet and how it will be evaluated on the exam.
  • Carefully read the relevant parts of Chicago, as well as good reference books about your exam topic.
  • For stylistic editing, for example, read William Zinsser, Joseph Williams, Constance Hale and Susan Bell. For copy editing, read Amy Einsohn and Carol Fisher Saller.
  • Set up your reference guides for quick use. Put sticky notes on sections you use often and on topics you regularly need to look up.

Practise taking the exam

Use the following approach on a variety of documents to practise your editing or proofreading.

Do it several times, and you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently handle the exam documents, even if they’re outside your usual medium, topic or client environment.

This is also the process you’ll want to use during the exam itself.

It will allow you to start the exam quickly and efficiently, so you can feel calm and positive.

Allocate your time

Before you begin either a practice test or the real exam, check the marking scheme.

Use the marks to decide how much time to spend on each part of the exam. Allocate more time for sections that are worth more points.

Write down what time you should begin each part of the exam.

As you write the exam, keep an eye on your watch and stick to your schedule.

If you don’t finish a section, you may have time to come back to it later.

Understand the scenario

Each exam includes a selection of questions (true or false, fill in the blanks, matching, multiple choice and short answers) followed by a passage that you’re asked to proofread or edit.

The passage is introduced by a scenario that tells you what you’re expected to do.

The scenario might be an email from a managing editor, for example, asking you to do the following:

  • fix the structural problems in a manuscript for a radio talk
  • make the voice more personal
  • cut 200 words

Or it could be a memo asking you to perform two tasks:

  • incorporate an author’s last-minute changes into a book chapter
  • check that the copy editor’s changes have been made

See the practice tests in the Test Preparation Guides and in Meeting Professional Editorial Standards for sample passages and scenarios.

After you’ve worked through the practice test and studied the answer key and discussion, continue to practise by editing other documents.

These can be documents that come to you in the course of your daily work, ones you find on the internet or even passages from books you pull from your own shelf.

For each document, create a scenario like the one in the Test Preparation Guide, to give yourself a focus.

Understand the task

Before you begin, make sure you understand what’s required. Ask yourself three questions:

1. What do the markers expect you to do—and not do?

What kinds of changes are you expected to make? To what degree? What should you query? Are you required to add or cut material?

The answers depend on a variety of factors, including:

  • The scenario you’re given
  • The stage of production
  • How well the client understands proofreaders’ or copy editors’ marks
  • How much the client knows about design—the less s/he knows, the more detailed your instructions should be
  • Whether there’s a design specification or template—if there is, don’t make design changes or suggestions

Remember, in the proofreading and copy editing exams, you may lose marks if you do stylistic or structural editing or make design changes that are inappropriate to the stage of production.

When you’re proofreading, if the typesetter’s corrections are correct, you can let them stand—there’s no need to mark them as okay.

If you’re proofreading an author’s alterations, it’s fine to edit the new text.

If it’s likely to cause overflow, you’ll need to make cuts somewhere, or identify and query the layout consequences and suggest solutions.

2. What elements of the document will you focus on, and what aspects of them?

Identify and then prioritize them, based on what’s requested in the scenario.

3. Where are errors likely to occur in this type of document and at this stage of production?

You may need to cross-reference within a document (e.g., a name mentioned in a caption and a name mentioned in the text), or between documents (e.g., a teacher’s guide and a student manual, or instructions and a form).

Plan your strategy

Understanding the task will help you create a plan, so you can:

  • Start the exam calmly, knowing you have a process
  • Get through the important things on time
  • Avoid making changes you shouldn’t

Use the following steps to plan your approach.

1. Analyze the scenario to see what you need to do.

Make quick notes on scrap paper to outline your understanding of the task.

Remember that the marks are weighted in favour of the most important parts of the task.

Include information about the stage of production, particular challenges and where errors may hide.

Make a checklist you can follow while editing the passage.

Group the parts of the task into passes, in logical order. For instance:

  • check table of contents second to last, in case you change chapter titles while editing
  • check pagination last, so you can sort the pages into the correct order while checking the pagination

2. If required, set up your style sheet.

Choose categories that fit the task. These categories might include the following:

  • Spelling
  • Punctuation
  • Numbers
  • Layout
  • Headings
  • Sidebars
  • Boxes
  • Lists

Fill in the style sheet as you proofread or edit the passage

Hand it in with the exam.

3. Do the proofread or the edit.

Follow your checklist, creating a style sheet as you go, if required.

Watch the time.

Remember, you have only three hours to complete the entire exam.

4. Be neat.

You don’t want to lose marks because your directions are unclear!

It helps if you:

  • Plan your queries before writing them, to ensure that they’re concise and correct, and to estimate how much space they’ll require
  • Write your queries and marks as high on the page as possible, to allow space for more queries and marks further down the page
  • Take time to write neatly—it helps the markers understand your comments, and it’s faster than erasing and rewriting

5. Remember not to exceed what’s appropriate for the job.

Clients rarely appreciate suggestions for stylistic improvements if you’re supposed to be proofreading.

Markers will penalize you if you do more than what’s called for.

So save your marks, and save your time for what matters.

6. Take a last look over the document.

Have you done everything you’re supposed to? Have you missed anything that could be worth points?

Preparation checklist

The following checklist will help you decide whether you’re ready to take an Editors Canada Professional Certification exam.

You can download the form, print it and use it to keep track of your progress.

The more checkmarks you have in the “Yes” column, the better prepared you are for an Editors Canada Professional Certification exam.

CriterionYesNoAction Required
Do I have at least five years of full-time experience as an editor or proofreader?   
Is my experience reasonably broad?   
Have I mastered the fundamentals of editing, in addition to the specific skills for the type of editing I’m doing?   
Do employers, clients and other editors think my skills are excellent?   
Have I studied Professional Editorial Standards (2024) in detail?   
Have I worked through the Editors Canada Certification Study Guide for the exam I want to take?   
Have I worked through Meeting Professional Editorial Standards?   
Have I taken courses and/or workshops that may help me pass the exam I want to take?   
Have I read books that may help me pass the exam I want to take?   
Do I have a study plan?   
Have I allocated enough time for preparation?   
Have I found a study partner or joined a study group?   
Have I reviewed all of the style guides I’m allowed to take to the exam site?   
Have I reviewed Editing Canadian English?   
Do I regularly use a variety of style guides?   
Do I understand the differences between Canadian, British, and American English and editing practices?   
Do I know how to mark up text with standard copy editors’ and/or proofreaders’ marks?   
Have I looked on the internet and in reference books for editing and proofreading quizzes that may help me evaluate and improve my skills?   
Have I practised editing and proofreading all kinds of documents, working on both my editing/proofreading skills and my speed?   
Have I upgraded my test-taking skills?   
Have I prepared myself mentally and physically for exam day?   

Certification quick links

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