Start the style sheet with four headings: Names, Terms, Numbers, Capitals. Then, as you read a text, note every decision that might come up again. The style sheet does not need to be fancy, or even written neatly. Its function is to prevent a small inconsistency from turning into many scattered problems in a text.
Names are important to catch (the spellchecker may not know the right way to spell a name). A writer might have Maya Chen in one paragraph and Maya Chan in another. Or there may be several variations of a company, product, city, or publication name. If a factual check is called for, review the draft, any source material given to you, and a reliable reference. Once you’ve decided on the right version of the name, record it in the style sheet, and then use find and replace to search for the other versions.
Terms may be just as confusing. The draft might say copy editor, copyeditor, copy-editor in different places. Or it may switch between a comment tool and an annotation tool to describe the same thing. Sometimes it’s good to allow some variety, but too often variation leaves the reader to wonder if they’re supposed to understand that two things are meant. If a preferred style, context, or style guide exists, record your decision to use that particular word before changing every instance to conform.
Don’t stop at just searching the text for numbers: look at whether numbers are written as words (as in five exercises) or as numerals (as in 6 examples), the way measurements, dates, and number ranges are written. Is it 10 percent or 15%? The way you treat numbers depends on the house style you’re working to, but it should be a consistent method, not the result of random choices or mistakes. Watch out, too, for not changing things like numbers inside of quotes, titles of books, in formulas, or as part of known facts when using find and replace.
To practice, take a two-page sample of your draft and use a different highlighter to mark each occurrence of a name, word (or words), number, and capitalization (or lowercase letter) that seems to repeat. Don’t correct anything when you are doing this first scan, and just make note of the variations that you have found. When you’ve finished, transfer your notes to a separate piece of paper or digital note, as these will become your style sheet. Look through your highlights and choose which ones you may need to look up, then look them up. When you’ve established the correct versions, begin the search and replace (or your manual copyediting process). This exercise makes you notice what you’re copying rather than trying to catch the details yourself in a hurried second pass.
Capitalization is a frequent problem area. Perhaps the text refers to the Editorial team and the editorial team. Or maybe a class subject is capitalized in one paragraph but not in the one immediately before. Ask yourself: is it a proper name, an official title, or simply an item of description? You shouldn’t do this purely by gut feeling. Record your choices in the style sheet so that you don’t have to guess each time, and be careful to use the same treatment for every instance of the same term rather than treating every occurrence as separate.
The final step is to do a readthrough of the edited document, without tracked changes. Do a search for common variants that you may have missed. Then, read through the text normally to look for inconsistencies that the find and replace didn’t pick up. To ensure you haven’t missed anything, choose one name, word, number, capital, or whatever from your style sheet and make sure it has not slipped into the wrong version at any point in the text, from start to finish.