Developmental Edit
Updated 2026-08-01
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A stage in professional editing, standard in book publishing and distinguished from line editing and copy editing. Its core proposition is that structural problems must be resolved before surface problems, because polishing sentences in a draft with a broken structure improves prose that may not survive revision. The key qualifier is that it is collaborative rather than corrective: the editor works with the author's intent, asks questions and proposes restructuring, and does not substitute their own content for the author's.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Order the Work: Fix structure before sentences, because rewriting prose you may cut is wasted effort. - Ask the Blunt Question: Test each chapter by asking whether the book would suffer if it were deleted. - Keep the Author's Voice: Propose structural options instead of rewriting content in your own style.
Anchor fast decisions
Editing effort is spent most efficiently where changes propagate. A structural change invalidates work already done at the sentence level, while a sentence fix does nothing for a structural flaw, so addressing macro issues first avoids discarding downstream effort. The order matters because the two levels interact: the same paragraph can be excellent or unnecessary depending on whether its scene belongs in the book.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- baike.baidu.comhttps://baike.baidu.com/item/发展性编辑verified
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