Background:
All Cochrane Reviews are copy-edited before publication to improve clarity, consistency, accuracy and completeness. Cochrane's Copy Edit Support team encounters a range of editorial and style issues and queries, which can be fed back into the earlier stages of the editorial process, to avoid repeating errors and inconsistencies, and thereby improve the final quality of published reviews. With the recent addition of a checking stage for Cochrane protocols, reviews and updates submitted to Copy Edit Support, the team has identified a number of errors and issues that appear regularly, and these will inform our workshop.

Objectives:
To equip attendees to identify and correct – and so avoid – common errors in reviews and protocols prior to copy-editing.

Description:
This workshop will cover several common errors, covering elements of structure, formatting, style and consistency.

Attendees will be talked through a variety of issues and then work either individually, or in small groups, on real-life exercises to help them to understand and master each point. We will discuss the answers and options for each within the workshop. We will discuss the appropriate use of resources, such as the Cochrane Style Guide, the MECIR (Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews) and PLEACS (Plain Language Expectations for Authors of Cochrane Summaries) standards, and copy-editing checklists.

In advance of the workshop, participants will be asked to submit examples of review text that have caused them concern during the course of preparing Cochrane Reviews for copy-editing, and a selection of these will be used as practical, hands-on examples. During the workshop we will identify areas where further guidance or additional resources would be helpful.