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Editing is the process of preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material with the intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete final product. Modifications can include correcting, condensing, or re-organizing the original material.

The editing process often begins with the author's idea for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration between the author and the editor as the work is created. Editing can involve creative skills, human relations and a precise set of methods. Practicing editing can be a way to reduce language error in future literature works.

Editing is a dynamic process. An editor must have the knowledge to identify and to correct errors in a piece of work to refine and deliver its message. However, there are times when correcting an error may change the original message of the work. In such cases, editors must also know when to ignore certain errors and to identify the next best possible course of action, which may involve undoing past corrections. Effective editing comes from not only making corrections, but making corrections that still convey the original message of the work.

Within the publishing environment, editors of scholarly books are of three main types, each with particular responsibilities:

Acquisitions editor (or commissioning editor in Britain), who contracts with the author to produce the copy

Project editor or production editor, who sees the copy through its stages from manuscript to bound book and usually assumes most of the budget and schedule responsibilities

Copy editor or manuscript editor, who prepares the copy for conversion into printed form.

In the case of multi-author edited volumes, before the manuscript is delivered to the publisher it has undergone substantive and linguistic editing by the volume's editor, who works independently of the publisher.

As for scholarly journals, where spontaneous submissions are more common than commissioned works, the position of journal editor or editor-in-chief replaces the acquisitions editor of the book publishing environment, while the roles of production editor and copy editor remain. However, another editor is sometimes involved in the creation of scholarly research articles. Called the authors' editor, this editor works with authors to get a manuscript fit for purpose before it is submitted to a scholarly journal for publication.

Editing has a long history dating back to the earliest times of written language. Over time, editing has evolved greatly, particularly with the emergence of new forms of media and language that have led to a move towards multimodality. Today, hardcopies and print are no longer the main focus of editing as new content like film and audio require different kinds of edits.

Technical editing is now more commonly done using applications and websites on devices, which requires editors to be familiar with online platforms like Adobe Acrobat, , and . The significance and intentions behind editing have also changed, moving beyond print due to the continuous advancements in technology. As a result, the grounds and values of editing have changed as well. For instance, text is often shortened and simplified online because of the preference for quick answers among this generation. Additionally, the advancement in social issues has made it possible to offer easy access to vast amounts of information.

In terms of editing visual content, the two main forms are photographic and cinematic. Photo editing has evolved considerably from humble means, dating back to the early 20th century. During the 1920s, photographers established a new discipline of creative editing by creating collages from multiple photos. By the late 1980s, it became possible to computerize images by running physical photos through a scanner. Over time, software began to develop, aimed toward the manipulation of different qualities of a photo. Today, there are a multitude of applications to choose from to edit the content or qualities of photos; Adobe Photoshop is a common example, as well as other applications such as Adobe Lightroom. Modern photo editing techniques include, but are not limited to linearization, white balance, noise reduction, tone reproduction and compression.

The other form of visual editing is cinematic editing. Cinematic editing entails anything that is to be used as cinematic material, mainly films. Cinematic editing d