Insofar as reading is a journey (taken by the target audience of a particular instance of writing) and a text is a path of meaning making (the writer wants the target audience to follow),
- copy editing (also read as "editing a printed copy of a text") focuses on removing the small debris from that path.
Because small debris (e.g., loose stones and fallen tree limbs) in the path (created for the target audience) are little obstacles that could cause the target audience to trip and fall,
- the writer clears the path (through copy editing) to avoid problems which could slow or halt the progress of the target audience.
Note: It is revising (not copy editing) which focuses on modifying the path of meaning making (the writer wants the target audience follow), not on clearing small debris from that path.
In the context of writing-to-others, small debris includes mistakes (in the eyes of the relevant discourse community of the target audience) in:
- grammar,
- spelling,
- punctuation, and
- discourse conventions concerned with the formatting and social etiquette (relevant to a particular instance of writing).
There is only one benefit to copy editing,
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