editing techniques in essays

Editing and Proofreading

What this handout is about.

This handout provides some tips and strategies for revising your writing. To give you a chance to practice proofreading, we have left seven errors (three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors) in the text of this handout. See if you can spot them!

Is editing the same thing as proofreading?

Not exactly. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading

• Get some distance from the text! It’s hard to edit or proofread a paper that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still to familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. Go for a run. Take a trip to the beach. Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. Someone who is reading the paper for the first time, comes to it with completely fresh eyes.
• Decide which medium lets you proofread most carefully. Some people like to work right at the computer, while others like to sit back with a printed copy that they can mark up as they read.
• Try changing the look of your document. Altering the size, spacing, color, or style of the text may trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing an unfamiliar document, and that can help you get a different perspective on what you’ve written.
• Find a quiet place to work. Don’t try to do your proofreading in front of the TV or while you’re chugging away on the treadmill. Find a place where you can concentrate and avoid distractions.
• If possible, do your editing and proofreading in several short blocks of time. Your concentration may start to wane if you try to proofread the entire text at one time.
• If you’re short on time, you may wish to prioritize. Make sure that you complete the most important editing and proofreading tasks.

Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. You can edit on several levels:

Have you done everything the assignment requires? Are the claims you make accurate? If it is required to do so, does your paper make an argument? Is the argument complete? Are all of your claims consistent? Have you supported each point with adequate evidence? Is all of the information in your paper relevant to the assignment and/or your overall writing goal? (For additional tips, see our handouts on understanding assignments and developing an argument .)

Overall structure

Does your paper have an appropriate introduction and conclusion? Is your thesis clearly stated in your introduction? Is it clear how each paragraph in the body of your paper is related to your thesis? Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence? Have you made clear transitions between paragraphs? One way to check the structure of your paper is to make a reverse outline of the paper after you have written the first draft. (See our handouts on introductions , conclusions , thesis statements , and transitions .)

Structure within paragraphs

Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? Does each paragraph stick to one main idea? Are there any extraneous or missing sentences in any of your paragraphs? (See our handout on paragraph development .)

Have you defined any important terms that might be unclear to your reader? Is the meaning of each sentence clear? (One way to answer this question is to read your paper one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working backwards so that you will not unconsciously fill in content from previous sentences.) Is it clear what each pronoun (he, she, it, they, which, who, this, etc.) refers to? Have you chosen the proper words to express your ideas? Avoid using words you find in the thesaurus that aren’t part of your normal vocabulary; you may misuse them.

Have you used an appropriate tone (formal, informal, persuasive, etc.)? Is your use of gendered language (masculine and feminine pronouns like “he” or “she,” words like “fireman” that contain “man,” and words that some people incorrectly assume apply to only one gender—for example, some people assume “nurse” must refer to a woman) appropriate? Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences? Do you tends to use the passive voice too often? Does your writing contain a lot of unnecessary phrases like “there is,” “there are,” “due to the fact that,” etc.? Do you repeat a strong word (for example, a vivid main verb) unnecessarily? (For tips, see our handouts on style and gender-inclusive language .)

Have you appropriately cited quotes, paraphrases, and ideas you got from sources? Are your citations in the correct format? (See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for more information.)

As you edit at all of these levels, you will usually make significant revisions to the content and wording of your paper. Keep an eye out for patterns of error; knowing what kinds of problems you tend to have will be helpful, especially if you are editing a large document like a thesis or dissertation. Once you have identified a pattern, you can develop techniques for spotting and correcting future instances of that pattern. For example, if you notice that you often discuss several distinct topics in each paragraph, you can go through your paper and underline the key words in each paragraph, then break the paragraphs up so that each one focuses on just one main idea.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation. You should proofread only after you have finished all of your other editing revisions.

Why proofread? It’s the content that really matters, right?

Content is important. But like it or not, the way a paper looks affects the way others judge it. When you’ve worked hard to develop and present your ideas, you don’t want careless errors distracting your reader from what you have to say. It’s worth paying attention to the details that help you to make a good impression.

Most people devote only a few minutes to proofreading, hoping to catch any glaring errors that jump out from the page. But a quick and cursory reading, especially after you’ve been working long and hard on a paper, usually misses a lot. It’s better to work with a definite plan that helps you to search systematically for specific kinds of errors.

Sure, this takes a little extra time, but it pays off in the end. If you know that you have an effective way to catch errors when the paper is almost finished, you can worry less about editing while you are writing your first drafts. This makes the entire writing proccess more efficient.

Try to keep the editing and proofreading processes separate. When you are editing an early draft, you don’t want to be bothered with thinking about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you’re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

The proofreading process

You probably already use some of the strategies discussed below. Experiment with different tactics until you find a system that works well for you. The important thing is to make the process systematic and focused so that you catch as many errors as possible in the least amount of time.

• Don’t rely entirely on spelling checkers. These can be useful tools but they are far from foolproof. Spell checkers have a limited dictionary, so some words that show up as misspelled may really just not be in their memory. In addition, spell checkers will not catch misspellings that form another valid word. For example, if you type “your” instead of “you’re,” “to” instead of “too,” or “there” instead of “their,” the spell checker won’t catch the error.
• Grammar checkers can be even more problematic. These programs work with a limited number of rules, so they can’t identify every error and often make mistakes. They also fail to give thorough explanations to help you understand why a sentence should be revised. You may want to use a grammar checker to help you identify potential run-on sentences or too-frequent use of the passive voice, but you need to be able to evaluate the feedback it provides.
• Proofread for only one kind of error at a time. If you try to identify and revise too many things at once, you risk losing focus, and your proofreading will be less effective. It’s easier to catch grammar errors if you aren’t checking punctuation and spelling at the same time. In addition, some of the techniques that work well for spotting one kind of mistake won’t catch others.
• Read slow, and read every word. Try reading out loud , which forces you to say each word and also lets you hear how the words sound together. When you read silently or too quickly, you may skip over errors or make unconscious corrections.
• Separate the text into individual sentences. This is another technique to help you to read every sentence carefully. Simply press the return key after every period so that every line begins a new sentence. Then read each sentence separately, looking for grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors. If you’re working with a printed copy, try using an opaque object like a ruler or a piece of paper to isolate the line you’re working on.
• Circle every punctuation mark. This forces you to look at each one. As you circle, ask yourself if the punctuation is correct.
• Read the paper backwards. This technique is helpful for checking spelling. Start with the last word on the last page and work your way back to the beginning, reading each word separately. Because content, punctuation, and grammar won’t make any sense, your focus will be entirely on the spelling of each word. You can also read backwards sentence by sentence to check grammar; this will help you avoid becoming distracted by content issues.
• Proofreading is a learning process. You’re not just looking for errors that you recognize; you’re also learning to recognize and correct new errors. This is where handbooks and dictionaries come in. Keep the ones you find helpful close at hand as you proofread.
• Ignorance may be bliss, but it won’t make you a better proofreader. You’ll often find things that don’t seem quite right to you, but you may not be quite sure what’s wrong either. A word looks like it might be misspelled, but the spell checker didn’t catch it. You think you need a comma between two words, but you’re not sure why. Should you use “that” instead of “which”? If you’re not sure about something, look it up.
• The proofreading process becomes more efficient as you develop and practice a systematic strategy. You’ll learn to identify the specific areas of your own writing that need careful attention, and knowing that you have a sound method for finding errors will help you to focus more on developing your ideas while you are drafting the paper.

Think you’ve got it?

Then give it a try, if you haven’t already! This handout contains seven errors our proofreader should have caught: three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors. Try to find them, and then check a version of this page with the errors marked in red to see if you’re a proofreading star.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Especially for non-native speakers of English:

Ascher, Allen. 2006. Think About Editing: An ESL Guide for the Harbrace Handbooks . Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Lane, Janet, and Ellen Lange. 2012. Writing Clearly: Grammar for Editing , 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle.

For everyone:

Einsohn, Amy. 2011. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications , 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 2006. Revising Prose , 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Tarshis, Barry. 1998. How to Be Your Own Best Editor: The Toolkit for Everyone Who Writes . New York: Three Rivers Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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• 13 Essential Editing Tips to Use in Your Essay Writing

The good student strives constantly to achieve a better essay each time they write one.

It can be a challenge to find ways to keep improving, but one way of making your essays instantly better is effective editing. Editing your essay before you submit it could mean the difference between a good grade and a brilliant one, so it’s worth taking fifteen minutes or so before you send it off just checking through it to make sure that the structure and wording is as good as it can be. In this article, we give you some tips to think about when you’re editing your own writing. Keep these tips alongside you to use as a checklist and you can’t go far wrong!

1. Start by getting the structure right

If you have time, try to leave a bit of time between finishing your essay and starting the editing process. This gives you time to approach it feeling reasonably fresh; if you edit immediately after spending a long time on something, you might find that you’re so close to it that you’re unable to spot errors. When you do sit down to look through it, start by looking at its structure. Think about the overarching shape of the argument you’re developing and check that the points you’ve made help build your essay towards a logical conclusion. You may have written an essay with the points in order of when they occurred to you, but is this really the most sensible order? Does one point follow logically on from the other? Would it make the essay more interesting to include a certain point near the beginning to tease the reader, or are you revealing too much in the opening, meaning it would be better to move some points nearer the end? These are just a few of the ways in which it might be possible to improve the structure, so it helps to keep in mind your overall argument and ensure your structure puts it across as effectively as possible. With word processors now the primary means of writing essays, it couldn’t be easier to rearrange paragraphs into a more logical structure by dragging and dropping or cutting and pasting paragraphs. If you do this, don’t forget to reread the essay to ensure that the wording works with this new order, otherwise you may end up with a sentence leading into the wrong paragraph.

2. Prune long sentences and paragraphs

Whether you’ve exceeded your word count or not, long sentences and paragraphs should be edited because they can be trickier to read, and risk being boring or hard to follow. Try, therefore, to keep sentences to a maximum of two or three clauses (or segments). Avoid long paragraphs by starting a new one if you find one getting longer than three or four sentences: a wall of text can be off-putting to the reader. Leave a space between paragraphs if you’re typing your essay, as we’re doing in this article. Another way of keeping sentences to a reasonable length is to go through what you’ve written and tighten up the wording. If you find yourself writing long sentences, try to look for ways in which you can reword them to express what you’re trying to say more concisely. You’ll probably find numerous instances of phrases that take many words to say what could be said in two or three.

3. Keep overly complicated language in check

It’s going to look obvious if you’ve had a thesaurus next to you while writing, just so that you can replace all the simple words with more complicated ones. The thing is, it doesn’t always make you look intelligent; you may, for instance, inadvertently choose the wrong synonym, not realising that even close synonyms can have subtly different meanings or connotations. Sometimes using big words where simple ones would suffice can seem contrived and pompous; aim for clear, concise language to avoid being verbose or pretentious. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use more complex words at all – just choose the situation carefully and don’t overdo it.

4. Watch for repetition of ideas and words

It’s easy to repeat yourself without realising it when you’re writing, but the editing process is there to enable you to spot this before your teacher or lecturer sees it. As you read through your essay, keep a look out for ideas you’ve repeated and delete whichever repetitions add nothing to your essay (don’t forget that the first instance of the idea may not be the most appropriate place for it, so consider which is the best moment to introduce it and delete the other mentions). On a related note, look out for instances in which you’ve laboured the point. Going on about a particular point for too long can actually undermine the strength of your argument, because it makes you look as though you’re desperately grappling to find supporting facts; sometimes a simple, clear statement with a brief piece of evidence to back it up is all that’s needed. You should be equally wary of repetition of words within the same sentence or paragraph. It’s fine to repeat common words such as “the”, obviously, but it’s best to avoid using the same connecting words, such as “also”, more than once in the same paragraph. Rephrase using alternative expressions, such as “what’s more”. More unusual words should be used just once per paragraph – words such as “unavoidable”, for example – unless it’s for emphasis.

5. Don’t rely on the spellcheck

It’s a tip we’ve told you before, but it’s worth repeating because it’s very important! The spellcheck will not pick up every single error in your essay. It may highlight some typos and misspellings, but it won’t tell you if you’ve inadvertently used the wrong word altogether. For example, you may have meant to write the word “from”, but accidentally mistyped it as “form” – which is still a word, so the spellchecker won’t register it. But it’s not the word you meant to write.

6. Spotting typos

It’s said that if you read through your work backwards, you’re more likely to spot typos. This is probably because it’s giving you a new perspective on what you’ve written, making it easier to spot glaring errors than if you read through it in the order in which you wrote it and in which you know what to expect. So, start with the last sentence and keep going in reverse order until you get to the beginning of your essay. Another tip is to print out your essay and take a red pen to it, circling or underlining all the errors and then correcting them on the computer later. It’s often easier to read a document from a printed version, and it also means that you can follow what you’re doing by touching each word with the end of your pencil to make sure you’re not skimming over any errors.

7. Omit unnecessary words and eradicate weasel words

Without even realising it, you’ve probably used plenty of unnecessary words in your writing – words that add to the word count without adding to the meaning – and you’ll find that your writing works just as well without them. An example is the word “very”, which almost always adds nothing to what you’re trying to say. As Mark Twain said, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be”. Weasel words are worse, as they are used to hide weak or objectionable arguments. A study of Wikipedia found that these tend to fall into three different categories: numerical vagueness (such as “many people say” without specifying who these people are), the use of the passive voice to distance the writer from what they’re saying (“it is often said”, for example, without saying by whom it is often said), and the use of adverbs designed to soften a point (such as “probably”). Look out for these in your own writing and rephrase to remove them; they are disingenuous and your essay will be stronger without them.

8. Remove tautologies

A tautology is a stylistic error involving redundant words, in this case the use of two consecutive words that mean the same thing, such as “the big giant” (referring simply to a “giant” would have been sufficient to convey the meaning). Students often use them when they’re trying to make their writing wordier, not realising that they simply make their writing worse.

9. Watch the commas

People tend either to put too many commas into a sentence, or too few. Too many, and the sentence sounds broken and odd; too few, and the reader has to read the sentence several times to figure out what you’re trying to say, because it comes out in a long, jumbled mess. The secret is to put commas in where you would naturally pause when speaking aloud. If it helps, try reading your writing aloud to see if it flows. Where you would pause for slightly longer, a semi-colon might be more appropriate than a comma. Use a semi-colon to connect two independent clauses that would work as two separate sentences.

10. Consistent spelling

Some words have more than one correct spelling, and the important thing is to be consistent with which one you use. You could, if you wanted to make your life a little easier, delve into the settings on your word processor and manipulate the spellcheck so that it highlights the version you decided against – or even autocorrects to the right version. If you’re writing in the UK, ensure that your word processor’s default language is set to UK English so that you don’t end up inadvertently correcting English spellings to US ones (“colour” to “color”, for example).

11. Get rid of exclamation marks and ellipses

In virtually every case, you don’t need to use an exclamation mark, and – at least in academic writing – your use of one may result in your writing not being taken quite so seriously. Only use them in exceptional circumstances when you really want to convey a feeling of surprise or outrage. Ellipses (“…”) should also be avoided except when you’re indicating the truncation of a quote from another writer (that is, where you left a bit out).

12. Attribute quotations

Quotations from authors or academic writers should be attributed to them. As you read through your essay, keep a look out for any quotations you’ve mentioned and make sure that you say where they’re from. If you’re writing an essay for university, a footnote would be an appropriate way of citing another writer. If you are using footnotes, this gives an extra area on which to focus your editing skills; ensure that all footnotes are consistently formatted, and don’t forget to put a bibliography containing all the books you’ve used at the end.

13. Consistent formatting

The appearance of your essay matters, too – and the formatting should not be neglected when you’re in editing mode. This means being consistent with your use of fonts, using italics or underline for emphasis rather than using them interchangeably, ensuring that the spacing between lines is consistent throughout, and other such minor aesthetic points. This may not sound very important, but consistent formatting helps your essay look professional; if you’ve used different fonts or line spacing or anything like that, your essay will look a mess even if what you’ve said in it is good. You could make use of the pre-populated formatting options in your word processor to ensure consistency throughout, with header 1 for the title, header 2 for subheadings and ‘normal text’ for the body of the document. If you find that there are too many things on this list to think about in one go when you’re reading through your essay, you could read through it several times looking out for different things each time. All this may seem a lot to think about when you’ve already put in so much effort to write the essay in the first place, but trust us: it will pay off with a sleek and polished piece.

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15 Tips for Writing, Proofreading, and Editing Your College Essay

What’s covered:, our checklist for writing, proofreading, and editing your essay, where to get your college essays edited.

Your college essay is more than just a writing assignment—it’s your biggest opportunity to showcase the person behind your GPA, test scores, and extracurricular activities. In many ways, it’s the best chance you have to present yourself as a living, breathing, and thoughtful individual to the admissions committee.

Unlike test scores, which can feel impersonal, a well-crafted essay brings color to your application, offering a glimpse into your passions, personality, and potential. Whether you’re an aspiring engineer or an artist, your college essay can set you apart, making it essential that you give it your best.

1. Does the essay address the selected topic or prompt?

Focus on responding directly and thoughtfully to the prompt. If the question asks about your reasons for choosing a specific program or your future aspirations, ensure that your essay revolves around these themes. Tailor your narrative to the prompt, using personal experiences and reflections that reinforce your points.

• Respond directly to the prompt: It’s imperative that you thoughtfully craft your responses so that the exact themes in the prompt are directly addressed. Each essay has a specific prompt that serves a specific purpose, and your response should be tailored in a way that meets that objective.
• Focus: Regardless of what the prompt is about—be it personal experiences, academic achievements, or an opinion on an issue—you must keep the focus of the response on the topic of the prompt .

2. Is the college essay well organized?

An essay with a clear structure is easier to follow and is more impactful. Consider organizing your story chronologically, or use a thematic approach to convey your message. Each paragraph should transition smoothly to the next, maintaining a natural flow of ideas. A well-organized essay is not only easier for the reader to follow, but it can also aid your narrative flow. Logically structured essays can guide the reader through complex and hectic sequences of events in your essay. There are some key factors involved in good structuring:

• A strong hook: Start with a sentence or a paragraph that can grab the attention of the reader. For example, consider using a vivid description of an event to do this.
• Maintain a thematic structure: Maintaining a thematic structure involves organizing your response around a central theme, allowing you to connect diverse points of your essay into a cohesive centralized response.
• Transitioning: Each paragraph should clearly flow into the next, maintaining continuity and coherence in narrative.

3. Include supporting details, examples, and anecdotes.

Enhance your narrative with specific details, vivid examples, and engaging anecdotes. This approach brings your story to life, making it more compelling and relatable. It helps the reader visualize your experiences and understand your perspectives.

4. Show your voice and personality.

Does your personality come through? Does your essay sound like you? Since this is a reflection of you, your essay needs to show who you are.

For example, avoid using vocabulary you wouldn’t normally use—such as “utilize” in place of “use”—because you may come off as phony or disingenuous, and that won’t impress colleges.

5. Does your essay show that you’re a good candidate for admission?

Your essay should demonstrate not only your academic strengths. but also the ways in which your personal qualities align with the specific character and values of the school you’re applying to . While attributes like intelligence and collaboration are universally valued, tailor your essay to reflect aspects that are uniquely esteemed at each particular institution.

For instance, if you’re applying to Dartmouth, you might emphasize your appreciation for, and alignment with, the school’s strong sense of tradition and community. This approach shows a deeper understanding of and a genuine connection to the school, beyond its surface-level attributes.

6. Do you stick to the topic?

Your essay should focus on the topic at hand, weaving your insights, experiences, and perspectives into a cohesive narrative, rather than a disjointed list of thoughts or accomplishments. It’s important to avoid straying into irrelevant details that don’t support your main theme. Instead of simply listing achievements or experiences, integrate them into a narrative that highlights your development, insights, or learning journey.

Example with tangent:

“My interest in performing arts began when I was five. That was also the year I lost my first tooth, which set off a whole year of ‘firsts.’ My first play was The Sound of Music.”

Revised example:

“My interest in performing arts began when I was five, marked by my debut performance in ‘The Sound of Music.’ This experience was the first step in my journey of exploring and loving the stage.”

7. Align your response with the prompt.

Before finalizing your essay, revisit the prompt. Have you addressed all aspects of the question? Make sure your essay aligns with the prompt’s requirements, both in content and spirit. Familiarize yourself with common college essay archetypes, such as the Extracurricular Essay, Diversity Essay, Community Essay, “Why This Major” Essay (and a variant for those who are undecided), and “Why This College” Essay. We have specific guides for each, offering tailored advice and examples:

• Extracurricular Essay Guide
• Diversity Essay Guide
• Community Essay Guide
• “Why This Major” Essay Guide
• “Why This College” Essay Guide
• Overcoming Challenges Essay Guide
• Political/Global Issues Essay Guide

While these guides provide a framework for each archetype, respectively, remember to infuse your voice and unique experiences into your essay to stand out!

8. Do you vary your sentence structure?

Varying sentence structure, including the length of sentences, is crucial to keep your writing dynamic and engaging. A mix of short, punchy sentences and longer, more descriptive ones can create a rhythm that makes your essay more enjoyable to read. This variation helps maintain the reader’s interest and allows for more nuanced expression.

Original example with monotonous structure:

“I had been waiting for the right time to broach the topic of her health problem, which had been weighing on my mind heavily ever since I first heard about it. I had gone through something similar, and I thought sharing my experience might help.”

Revised example illustrating varied structure:

“I waited for the right moment to discuss her health. The issue had occupied my thoughts for weeks. Having faced similar challenges, I felt that sharing my experience might offer her some comfort.”

In this revised example, the sentences vary in length and structure, moving from shorter, more impactful statements to longer, more descriptive ones. This variation helps to keep the reader’s attention and allows for a more engaging narrative flow.

9. Revisit your essay after a break.

• Give yourself time: After completing a draft of your essay, step away from it for a day or two. This break can clear your mind and reduce your attachment to specific phrases or ideas.
• Fresh perspective: When you come back to your essay, you’ll likely find that you can view your work with fresh eyes. This distance can help you spot inconsistencies, unclear passages, or stylistic issues that you might have missed earlier.
• Enhanced objectivity: Distance not only aids in identifying grammatical errors or typos, but it also allows you to assess the effectiveness of your argument or narrative more objectively. Does the essay really convey what you intended? Are there better examples or stronger pieces of evidence you could use?
• Refine and polish: Use this opportunity to fine-tune your language, adjust the flow, and ensure that your essay truly reflects your voice and message.

Incorporating this tip into your writing process can significantly improve the quality and effectiveness of your college essay.

10. Choose an ideal writing environment.

By identifying and consistently utilizing an ideal writing environment, you can enhance both the enjoyment and effectiveness of your essay-writing process.

• Discover your productive spaces: Different environments can dramatically affect your ability to think and write effectively. Some people find inspiration in the quiet of a library or their room, while others thrive in the lively atmosphere of a coffee shop or park.
• Experiment with settings: If you’re unsure what works best for you, try writing in various places. Notice how each setting affects your concentration, creativity, and mood.
• Consider comfort and distractions: Make sure your chosen spot is comfortable enough for long writing sessions, but also free from distracting elements that could hinder your focus.
• Time of day matters: Pay attention to the time of day when you’re most productive. Some write best in the early morning’s tranquility, while others find their creative peak during nighttime hours.

11. Are all words spelled correctly?

While spell checkers are a helpful tool, they aren’t infallible. It’s crucial to read over your essay meticulously, possibly even aloud, to catch any spelling errors. Reading aloud can help you notice mistakes that your eyes might skip over when reading silently. Be particularly attentive to words that spellcheck might not catch, such as proper nouns, technical jargon, or homophones (e.g., “there” vs. “their”). Attention to detail in spelling reflects your care and precision, both of which are qualities that admissions committees value.

12. Do you use proper punctuation and capitalization?

Correct punctuation and capitalization are key to conveying your message clearly and professionally . A common mistake in writing is the misuse of commas, particularly in complex sentences.

Example of a misused comma:

Incorrect: “I had an epiphany, I was using commas incorrectly.”

In this example, the comma is used incorrectly to join two independent clauses. This is known as a comma splice. It creates a run-on sentence, which can confuse the reader and disrupt the flow of your writing.

Corrected versions:

Correct: “I had an epiphany: I was using commas incorrectly.”

Correct: “I had an epiphany; I was using commas incorrectly.”

Correct: “I had an epiphany—I was using commas incorrectly.”

Correct: “I had an epiphany. I was using commas incorrectly.”

The corrections separate the two clauses with more appropriate punctuation. Colons, semicolons, em dashes, and periods can all be used in this context, though periods may create awkwardly short sentences.

These punctuation choices are appropriate because the second clause explains or provides an example of the first, creating a clear and effective sentence structure. The correct use of punctuation helps maintain the clarity and coherence of your writing, ensuring that your ideas are communicated effectively.

13. Do you abide by the word count?

Staying within the word count is crucial in demonstrating your ability to communicate ideas concisely and effectively. Here are some strategies to help reduce your word count if you find yourself going over the prescribed limits:

• Eliminate repetitive statements: Avoid saying the same thing in different ways. Focus on presenting each idea clearly and concisely.
• Use adjectives judiciously: While descriptive words can add detail, using too many can make your writing feel cluttered and overwrought. Choose adjectives that add real value.
• Remove unnecessary details: If a detail doesn’t support or enhance your main point, consider cutting it. Focus on what’s essential to your narrative or argument.
• Shorten long sentences: Long, run-on sentences can be hard to follow and often contain unnecessary words. Reading your essay aloud can help you identify sentences that are too lengthy or cumbersome. If you’re out of breath before finishing a sentence, it’s likely too long.
• Ensure each sentence adds something new: Every sentence should provide new information or insight. Avoid filler or redundant sentences that don’t contribute to your overall message.

14. Proofread meticulously.

Implementing a thorough and methodical proofreading process can significantly elevate the quality of your essay, ensuring that it’s free of errors and flows smoothly.

• Detailed review: After addressing bigger structural and content issues, focus on proofreading for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. This step is crucial for polishing your essay and making sure it’s presented professionally.
• Different techniques: Employ various techniques to catch mistakes. For example, read your essay backward, starting from the last sentence and working your way to the beginning. This method can help you focus on individual sentences and words, rather than getting caught up in the content.
• Read aloud: As mentioned before, reading your essay aloud is another effective technique. Hearing the words can help identify awkward phrasing, run-on sentences, and other issues that might not be as obvious when reading silently.

15. Utilize external feedback.

While self-editing is crucial, external feedback can provide new perspectives and ideas that enhance your writing in unexpected ways. This collaborative process can help you keep your essay error-free and can also help make it resonate with a broader audience.

• Fresh perspectives: Have a trusted teacher, mentor, peer, or family member review your drafts. Each person can offer unique insights and perspectives on your essay’s content, structure, and style.
• Identify blind spots: We often become too close to our writing to see its flaws or areas that might be unclear to others. External reviewers can help identify these blind spots.
• Constructive criticism: Encourage your reviewers to provide honest, constructive feedback. While it’s important to stay true to your voice and story, be open to suggestions that could strengthen your essay.
• Diverse viewpoints: Different people will focus on different aspects of your writing. For example, a teacher might concentrate on your essay’s structure and academic tone, while a peer might provide insights into how engaging and relatable your narrative is.
• Incorporate feedback judiciously: Use the feedback to refine your essay, but remember that the final decision on any changes rests with you. It’s your story and your voice that ultimately need to come through clearly.

When it comes to refining your college essays, getting external feedback is crucial. Our free Peer Essay Review tool allows you to receive constructive criticism from other students, providing fresh perspectives that can help you see your work in a new light. This peer review process is invaluable and can help you both identify areas for improvement and gain different viewpoints on your writing.

For more tailored expert advice, consider the guidance of a CollegeVine advisor . Our advisors, experienced in the college admissions process, offer specialized reviews to enhance your essays. Their insights into what top schools are looking for can elevate your narrative, ensuring that your application stands out. Whether it’s through fine-tuning your grammar or enriching your story’s appeal, our experts’ experience and expertise can significantly increase your likelihood of admission to your dream school!

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Examples: Edited Papers

Need editing and proofreading services, guide to essay editing: methods, tips, & examples.

• Tags: Essay , Essay Editing

When it comes to essay writing, the process of editing is often glossed over and is reduced to last-minute connections. However, thorough essay editing helps you stand out from the crowd. A skillfully written essay not only involves impressive writing, but also meticulous editing.  

In this article, we will walk you through the process of essay editing and understand why it is important. Without any further ado, let’s get to it! 

What is essay editing?

Essay editing involves performing grammatical or structural checks in order to improve the readability and coherence of your essay. While most believe that editing an essay simply involves proofreading it, it is actually a much more extensive process. 

Essay editing involves multiple processes, such as restructuring sentences and paragraphs, correcting tone or cohesiveness, eliminating fluff content and redundancies, and finally, proofreading. 

Why is essay editing important?

Meticulous editing is crucial in improving the clarity and coherence of your ideas. It not only brings out the core message of your essay but also provides a proper structure to your essay.

Here are a few more reasons as to why essay editing is important: 

1. Helps correct structural inconsistencies.

Effective editing helps detect structural and tonal inconsistencies that don’t fit in with a particular paragraph or the essay as a whole. These inconsistencies can then be rephrased, restructured, or completely eliminated from your essay. 

2. Helps simplify your essay.

Complex words and run-on sentences make your essay verbose and obscure its core message. In order to establish a strong central idea, it is crucial to meticulously edit your essay. Through editing, you can not only refine and clarify the central message of your essay but also make it more readable.

3. Helps filter out unnecessary information.

Editing helps get rid of redundancies, filler, or fluff content which cleans up the sentences and paragraphs of your essay. Eliminating these redundancies makes your content more succinct, clear, and concise. 

4. Helps correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.

The importance of spelling, grammar, and punctuation cannot be understated. A single misplaced comma can change the meaning of a sentence and create a poor impression on the reader. Proofreading ensures that such errors are not made. It involves correcting any major or minor spelling and grammar errors.

Now that we’ve understood the importance of essay editing, let’s take a look at the following example:

The mission of Voyager 1 was to go study the big gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, and then continue its journey beyond the solar system. As it journeyed on , it sent back lots of pictures and data about the planets it passed. One of the cool things it discovered was the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, which is a storm that’s been going on for centuries. It’s amazing that Voyager 1 was able to capture all of this information and bring it back to us on Earth .

Voyager 1 was launched with the aim of studying gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn and venturing beyond the solar system. While on its journey across the solar system, it captured numerous images and gathered relevant data on multiple planets. One of its most fascinating discoveries was the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, an ongoing storm lasting for centuries. The ability to gather information about previously unexplored terrains is certainly a feat achieved by Voyager 1.

As you can see, there are plenty of grammatical and tonal inconsistencies in the first example. There is also use of informal language which is not consistent with this essay type. The second example shows what the grammatically correct, tonally consistent, edited version should look like.

What does an editor look for in your essay?

Professional essay editing services are trained to spot the most minute of structural and grammatical errors and are trained in college, as well as admission essay editing. They not only help point out surface-level errors in spelling and punctuation but conduct an in-depth analysis of your essay. 

Here’s what a professional editor looks for in your essay:

1. Errors in spelling and grammar:

This includes ensuring subject-verb agreement, conducting spellchecks on commonly misspelled words, or even maintaining consistency in the tense of your essay.

2. Errors in the use of technical terms: 

This includes ensuring the appropriate usage of signs, symbols, and units of measurement.

3. Inconsistencies in referencing styles: 

This task includes spotting errors and inconsistencies in major referencing style guides such as MLA, APA, and Chicago .

4. Issues in the layout: 

This includes maintaining consistency in essay formatting and ensuring proper use of graphs, tables, images, and figures.

5. Inconsistencies in tone: 

This involves simplifying run-on sentences, filtering out redundancies, and ensuring a consistent tone throughout the essay.

 6. Logical gaps in arguments: 

This includes detecting logical fallacies or gaps in arguments and making suggestions to correct these fallacies. 

7. Plagiarism : 

This involves thoroughly scanning the essay to ensure the originality of the content and detecting unintentional plagiarism. 

8. Conformity to referencing guidelines:  

This task includes cross-checking in-text citations and references and ensuring they conform to the prescribed guidelines.

9. Inconsistencies in formatting: 

This includes correcting inconsistencies in prescribed formatting guidelines.

Why should you hire a human editor? 

College essay editing requires significant expertise and attention to detail. Although essay writing tools such as Grammarly are useful in correcting surface-level errors, they are not complex enough to ensure 100% accuracy. They lack the human touch and are unable to detect various contextual and structural errors.

For instance, a proofreading tool will not detect any error in the following sentence, although it’s grammatically incorrect.

With who am I speaking?

It is clear that “I” is the subject in the sentence, hence the object should be “whom”. Such errors are ignored by online essay editing tools and require human intervention. 

The following table will give you a better understanding of the differences between human and machine editing: 

Steps to self-edit your essay 

Although consulting a human editor will make your job significantly easier, the college essay editing cost can sometimes be a burden. If you prefer self-editing your essay, you can use the following steps to help you ace your assignment.

1. Take a break

It is challenging to identify errors and inconsistencies in your essay immediately after writing it. Make sure to take a break and return to your work later with fresh eyes. This will help you view your essay from different perspectives and identify problem areas. You can also do this by asking friends or family members to review your work and provide necessary feedback. 

2. Start with major structural errors

Start off with a comprehensive overview. This includes creating a cohesive structure and ensuring the proper flow of arguments. Make sure that all your topics and concluding sentences highlight the importance of your thesis statement. You can also cut-and-paste parts of sentences or paragraphs to build momentum throughout your writing. 

3. Condense wordy sentences and paragraphs

After rearranging the major paragraphs to ensure a smooth-flowing structure, it’s time to cut the fluff. This may include repetitive information, filler content, as well as redundancies. Cutting out unnecessary information makes your essay concise and to the point, allowing your readers to focus on the key points of your argument.

4. Simplify jargon

It’s important to limit the use of jargon and ensure that your essay is accessible and easy to understand. While technical terms can be used in certain contexts, make sure to use them sparingly and accurately. It is important to strike a balance between technical and non-technical language. This will help you can write an essay that is both informative and engaging.

5. Ensure proper use of punctuation 

Avoid using lengthy run-on sentences that can be difficult to follow. Use clear, concise sentences that convey your ideas effectively. When it comes to academic writing, avoid using exclamation marks and em-dashes. They can be seen as highly informal and are usually used in stories or creative works. 

6. Maintain consistency in formatting throughout your essay

Make sure to stick to your university’s formatting and style guidelines when writing essays. This includes using headings and subheadings correctly, and ensuring that the font size and style are consistent throughout your essay. You can also make key points stand out by using bold or italicized text when necessary. 

The above pointers show how editing essays is tedious and can be time-consuming. As editing experts , we can make the editing process simpler for you. 

To reduce your challenges while writing essays, we have created extensive resources for you. You can bookmark the following resources and revisit them to clarify any doubts about essay writing! 

• Guide to a Perfect Descriptive Essay [Examples & Outline Included]
• How to Start an Essay: 4 Introduction Paragraph Examples
• How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay (Examples Included!)
• Compare and Contrast Essay | Quick Guide with Examples
• How to Write an Argumentative Essay (Examples Included)

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i revise my essay, is it acceptable to take the help of third-party editors for my essay, how can i edit my essay for free.

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21 Do-It-Yourself Editing Tips

by Melissa Donovan | Sep 2, 2021 | Better Writing | 34 comments

Tips for Editing Your Own Work.

The human mind is a funny thing; it likes to play tricks on us.

For example, when we proofread and edit our own writing, we tend to read it as we think it should be, which means we misread our own typos and other spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes as well as problems with word choice and sentence structure, context, and overall readability.

If you have a friend or family member who has good grammar skills, maybe they can help you by proofreading and editing your work before you send it out or publish it.

For special submissions and publications, hiring a professional proofreader or editor is the best way to make sure your writing is free of errors.

But for most of us, it’s not likely that anyone’s going to proofread and edit every single piece of writing that we create. That’s especially true for writers who put out a lot of material — like bloggers. Proofreading and editing services can get expensive, and friends and family probably don’t want to spend all their free time checking your work. Sometimes the only option available is to do it yourself.

Do-It-Yourself Editing Tips

Here are twenty-one do-it-yourself editing tips that you can put into practice for polishing your own writing:

• Proofread and edit every single piece of writing before it is seen by another set of eyes. No exceptions. Even if you hire a professional editor or proofreader, check your work first.
• Understand the difference between proofreading and editing. Edit first by making revisions to the content and syntax. Then proofread to check for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• Use the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word when you edit. This feature saves your edits. You can then review the changes you’ve made and approve or reject them.
• Step away from a piece of writing before you proofread it. The longer the piece, the longer you should wait to proofread it. Let a novel sit for a few weeks. Let a blog post sit overnight.
• Before proofreading and editing, run the spelling and grammar checker. Then run it again after you’re done polishing to check for any lingering typos. However, don’t count on software for spelling and grammar. Use it as a fail-safe.
• Read your work aloud. Pronounce each word slowly and clearly as you read and check for mistakes.
• Proofreading should never be a rush job. Do it s l o w l y.
• Don’t review your work once and then send it out into the world. I recommend editing until the piece reads smoothly and then proofreading it at least three more times.
• At the very least, proofread until you don’t catch any more errors.
• Read the piece backward so you can see each word separately and out of context.
• Look up the spelling of proper nouns (names) as well as scientific and technical terms that you’re not familiar with to make sure you’re spelling them correctly.
• Don’t make any assumptions. If you’re not sure about something, look it up so you can fix a mistake (if there is one) and learn the correct way.
• Don’t forget to proofread titles, headlines, and footnotes.
• Pay attention to the mistakes you’ve made in your writing. You’ll find that you tend to make the same ones repeatedly. Keep track of these and work on avoiding them during the initial writing process in the future.
• Choose one of the many style guides and stick with it. This will make your work more consistent, and you’ll have a trusty resource to use when you have questions about style and formatting.
• Start building a collection of grammar books and writing resources so when you do run into questions (and you will), you have access to reliable and credible answers.
• If you intentionally let grammatical mistakes slip through, do so by choice and make sure you have a good reason. It’s okay to break the rules if you know why you’re breaking them.
• Pay attention to formatting. Use the same formatting on all paragraphs and headings for a professional level of consistency. Learn how to use these features in your word processing software (in MS Word, this feature is called Styles).
• Proofread when you’re fresh and wide awake. Proofreading doesn’t go over well when you’re tired or distracted.
• Proofreading and editing can be tedious, so break up your revision sessions by doing other tasks that help you clear your mind: exercise, play with the pets or kids, go for a short walk, or listen to some music. Try to avoid reading or writing during these breaks.
• Make it your business to develop good grammar skills. Read up on grammar or subscribe to a blog that publishes grammar posts (like this one) to stay up to date on proper grammar.

Some people love the proofreading and editing process. Others despise it. If you’re into grammar, the mechanics of writing, and polishing your work, then proofreading and editing will be easier and more enjoyable for you. If not, just look at it as part of your job — something that goes along with being a writer.

And once you’re done proofreading and editing, make sure you get back to your writing.

Got any proofreading and editing tips to share? Leave a comment!

34 Comments

These are excellent tips! I love being eco friendly but find proofreading easier when I actually read the printed page. I do not use this method for every blog post but absolutely do for client work or longer pieces. It is so easy to miss errors on the screen, especially those where the word is spelled correctly but is the wrong word – quite, quiet, quit come to mind.

BTW, congrats on being named one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers! I totally agree! 🙂

I had to make a concentrated effort to teach myself to proofread and edit on the computer rather than in print. It was not easy at first! But now, I rarely hook up a printer to my computer (I’m trying to go 100% electronic).

101 Best Websites? I’m only aware of one publication where that particular list appears, and if it’s the one I’m thinking of… well, let’s just say I might freak out a little.

Oh yes it’s that one! You didn’t know? 🙂 You’re listed under writing communities and they even cited “Are You Cut Out For Freelance Writing?” I got an error by the way when I tried to pull that up. I was so excited and just assumed you knew too. Whoo hoo, happy dance!

Yes, I recently took that post down and just moved it to Scribizzy. Hmm. Wow! I’m excited. I am going to have to get a copy of that issue.

Great tips. I hate proofreading – it’s all details and I’m so not interested in that level of detail. When it’s really important, however, I do make myself sit down and give it a go – often to minimal success. 😉

Yes, proofreading is so tedious. I got lucky because I enjoy tedious tasks since they break up the monotony of other types of work, so I actually love to proofread. In any case, it’s definitely worth the time it takes.

Music to my ears, Melissa! I LOVE you for it! I’ve long felt proofreading is a dying art – a necessary skill. Great to see you taking up the cause. 🙂

Thanks, Lori! I always promote proofreading and good grammar. These things are sort of the underbelly of creative writing.

Now I am trying to proofread the picture that was used in the post, haha.

Heheh, good luck with that, Kelvin! That would have been an interesting challenge to add to this post.

Proof reading…what a novel concept.

Novel indeed! It’s as old as the hills, yet so many still refuse to include proofreading as part of being a serious writer.

#11 is my weakest link. I am too focused on the content and forget checking on titles, footers, and headers. It is too embarrassing when submitting a document to a customer with other customer’s name in header…

Alik, that’s one of my weak spots too, so that’s why it appears here in this list. Funny, because as bloggers we put those titles and subtitles in there so readers can scan, but then when we’re proofreading, we just ignore them. That seems so backwards!

I like how you broke your list down into incremental, practical steps.

You’re so right … the human mind does like to play tricks on us.

I can’t prove it, but I think sometimes my mind is out to get me.

Sometimes I wish my writing was more like what I meant, not what I said. Other times, I wonder who hijacked my brain and took it for a test drive. Sometimes it’s obvious the crash test dummy was driving.

Thanks, J.D. I know my mind is out to get me, and proofreading is the least of it! Heheheh. My brain gets hijacked all the time. Sometimes it turns out to be a good thing. But there’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a fantastic writing session when it all suddenly disappears, and I find myself sitting there wondering, what was I just about to say? Ugh!

These are fabulous tips Melissa. I find that if I print out the page I can see mistakes that I didn’t notice on the computer screen. I also agree that if you can wait from one day to the next to proofread you will do a better job than if you proofread immediately after writing something.

Thanks, Marelisa. I’ve been proofreading on the screen for so long now that I think more mistakes will slip through in print (for me). Waiting overnight is key! I have a strict rule about waiting overnight on any client work, but sometimes I do publish blog posts the same day, and yes, occasionally little typos and other annoying errors slip through.

My biggest proofreading trick is distance. Put it away, think about something else, and try to sneak up on it fresh.

The worst thing is when you’ve gone over it and over it and a blatant mistake is right there; but your mind is too numb and accommodating to see it. Reading it as though it was the first time, reading it as a reader might, is how I catch 90% of my mistakes.

Yes, many people seem to agree that this is the most important tip for proofreading. I’d say it’s true for editing and revising as well. I recently heard a novelist say that she always lets a book sit for at least six weeks before the final edit. It really does give you a fresh perspective.

Hi Melissa! Great tips and each one is important. What I love is discovering a blatant mistake (or several mistakes) after publishing. Writing on a word processor is so different than blogging, and I actually prefer the format. Really, I can only put so much effort in proofreading for my blog as I work too many hours to care. Writing in proper manuscript form is so tedious and when you have a few hundred pages of text, it can be a nightmare. When I get close to being ready to have an agent, I will definitely hire someone to proofread my manuscript (it maybe you that I hire). Reading my own writing can create a type of “mistake blindness”. A fresh set of trustworthy eyes will help a lot.

Oh yeah, I haven’t been blogging much lately and doubt I will anytime soon aside from a periodical fiction story for fun. Thanks for all the useful ideas and I will try some out 🙂

Ugh, I go crazy when I discover big mistakes post-publication. Even the little ones annoy me. They bother me on my websites and not so much on other people’s, unless it’s an obvious disregard for grammar. I’d love to help you with your proofreading. You know how to reach me! Hope you get back to regular blogging soon!

If I find one more “you’re” instead of “your” in my blog posts, I’m going to throttle myself (if that’s possible). That and errors in my use of commas are driving me crazy.

So, I surfed to your site and found this fantastic article. Just what I need. I’m particularly intrigued by the “reading backwards” suggestion. I think I’ll try it.

The more I write, the more likely I am to make mistakes. So, I think blogging on a regular basis has become a proofreading challenge and new learning curve. At the same time, I’m forced to just be okay with some mistakes and typos and let them slide. Otherwise, I’d publish a lot fewer blogs.

Anyway, thanks for the useful tips. And keep up the good work!

I give myself a lot more slack with typos when it comes to blogging. I still cringe when I find one, but like you said, the more we write, the more likely we are to make mistakes. I do believe good grammar is important, but I don’t think it’s as important as content (or creativity). Just look at ee cummings!

After my first read-through for obvious typos/tense/etc issues, my next step (and one I never skip) is systematically running chunks of text through “editminion.” This allows me to target passive voice and cliches immediately (because when I edit them, I have a tendency to miss a verb tense change here and there – and doing this before in-depth read-throughs saves me a lot of tears later.) You are very right about not relying on software completely, and as the years go on, there are fewer mistakes for these programs to catch.

Hi Ricky. I haven’t heard of “ediminion,” but it sounds interesting. I usually run a spell/grammar check before my final proof, but I use it as a fail-safe for catching typos that I may have missed. Other than that, I try to stay away from editing software. However, I know a lot of writers use such software, so thanks for sharing your favorite with us.

Here’s two more tips: 22 – The second time you proofread your work – don’t do it on a computer screen. Either print it and proofread that or send the document to an ebook reader and use that. 23 – Get a text to speech program and have that read the document to you while you follow along. You read what you want or expect it to say. A text to speech program will read what is actually there. I use ‘Text Aloud’ but there are lots of others including free options. None of them get the pronunciation completely correct though but that’s OK – it can make you smile.

Thanks for adding these, John. I print big projects but not blog posts or page-length projects. Therefore, I rarely print to proofread. I haven’t tried text-to-speech, but it sounds promising!

Thank you very much for posting this article. Proofreading is really tough for me. I miss mistakes and typos all the time(( Do you think I should hire a professional proofreading service all the time or only for the most important works?

Hi Seiko. Hiring a professional editor depends on many factors: your budget, skill level, the type of projects you’re producing. So I really can’t advise specifically, but if you are publishing a book, then yes, you should definitely get it professionally edited. Authors should still revise and proofread their own writing even if they are working with a professional editor, so that would be a good habit to get into. Best of luck to you!

Thanks for this good article. You offer a lot of helpful ideas here. I especially like the suggestion of reading out loud. I do this often, and I know a lot of other editors who do the same. Keep up the good work!

Thanks, Jay!

Love #13. I was asked to edit a professional text to change all the British spellings to American English. I never saw the title and copyright page where my last name was misspelled!

Oh no! I think it happens to all writers. I feel your pain!

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11 Tips for Editing Your Own Writing – Checklist Included

| Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond studied Advanced Writing & Editing Essentials at MHC. She’s been an International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author for over a decade. And she’s worked as an Editor for several mid-sized publications. Candace has a keen eye for content editing and a high degree of expertise in Fiction.

Are you a student or a writer looking to finish some top-notch work but can’t afford to hire an editor? Even if you could, practicing self-editing techniques will help you become a better writer.

I use most of these techniques to help polish my own writing before sending it to my editor, which brings down the costs. Below are 11 tips for editing your writing to hone your craft and a cheat sheet you can download.

How Hard is it to Self Edit?

A lot of writers practice self-editing because it helps them master their craft. Avoiding passive voice or filler words are just two examples of writing editing techniques you can learn. The following checklist contains guidelines and examples that will show you how to self-edit your work.

The Importance of Self-Editing

Developing your language skills through the process of self-editing is beneficial. It is less likely that you will develop your writing skills to the highest possible level if you simply rely on other people to point out and correct your errors in writing.

You are laying the groundwork for future growth and development in yourself by cultivating the ability to edit and enhance your writing and focusing on consistently improving your writing talents.

When you are in a situation where you cannot rely on others for immediate assistance, self-editing can help you achieve success.

Take your grammar skills to the next level

Take Our Copyediting Course

Do You Still Need an Editor If You Self-Edit?

The answer is not straightforward and depends on various factors. Sometimes, you might still need an editor even if you self-edit. In fact, I highly recommend it, even if you have extensive editing skills. It’s just too easy to make careless errors and miss it with your own eye because you’ve written the piece and have likely read it over a dozen times already.

For writing meant to be published and made available in academic or legal contexts, for technical writing and pieces of text meant for selling, you should turn to a professional editor. For example, I would never publish a book without having an editor look it over first, no matter how confident I am in my self-editing skills.

How to Edit Your Own Creative Writing

These tips work well for me, so hopefully, you can utilize them with your own work.

Read Your Writing in a New Format

Convert your writing to a new format to gain clarity and a better overview of your work. If it was typed, you should print it out. Alternately, you may convert your Word document to PDF format, or you could alter the color, font, and size of your text. These strategies will give you a more critical eye and help you see your work as if an “outsider” read it.

Take a Break

Attempting to do everything at once is a common mistake amongst novice writers. Give your writing time to rest, whether a few hours or the whole night or even a few days. Creating a psychological divide between yourself and your work requires physical and symbolic separation. After some time away from it, you will be more likely to notice odd sentences and apparent errors in them.

Read It Out Loud

When you hear your writing aloud, you can catch things like clumsy wording, repetition, and other issues that detract from the flow and clarity of your work. A writer may not know their writing has poor sentence structure or that their main argument is unclear until they hear it read aloud.

Take advantage of text-to-speech software if it’s too much to read. There’s actually a free option built-in to Microsoft Word.

Remove Uncertain Language

A good writer masters their topic, leaving no room for uncertain phrases. If you want to communicate effectively, you should avoid using statements that sound indecisive. When you use terms like “seems to be” or “might be a reason for,” you come across as undecided, which makes your message appear less convincing to the listener.

Avoid Repetitive Phrases

This is a common problem with writers trying to meet the word count of those looking to make a point in their text. You should avoid repeatedly using the same words or phrases to make your argument since your audience will notice if you do this. Use a word frequency counter to identify repeated words, then look through a thesaurus for potential replacements.

Eliminate Filler Words

If your text is comprehensive while eliminating some of the words, those are known as “fillers.” A word processor can help with that, and it will help you find redundant words. Most of the time, words like “it” or “there” don’t belong in your writing.

Remove Weak “to Be” Verbs

New writers use variations of the verb “to be” quite often, thus weakening the following words (hence the concept of “weak verb”). For example, instead of saying, “They were not fans of the band,” you could say, “They disliked the band.”

Remove Weak Adjectives

Weak adjectives decrease your writing quality. “Very” and “really” are two perfect examples. Instead, you can use more powerful adjectives to replace them. You can use fewer words and still give your text an impact.

Use Grammarly to Find Mistakes

Grammarly is a must-have tool for both writers and editors, and I always sing its praises . The Grammarly proofreading tool checks for spelling errors, grammatical errors, punctuation errors, and more than 250 advanced rules to uncover the mistakes such as double negatives, passive voice, and hanging modifiers. 

After some practice with Grammarly, you’ll start to recognize patterns of error that crop up frequently in your writing. Bad writing habits like run-on sentences and inconsistencies are easy to fall back on during the writing process. 

Use the Chicago Manual of Style Online

The online version is available to writers at any time. Subscribing for a year may be worthwhile if writing is your profession. Priced at $41 at the moment, it’s an investment in your future as a writer because of its comprehensive guidance on writing mechanics.

Separate Your Editing Tasks

If the idea of editing your work fills you with dread, try breaking the process down into several phases that are more doable for you. During the initial pass, you should ensure that your ideas flow logically. When you go back through it, pay attention to sentence structure.

Writing Editing Checklist

Keep these points and editing tips on hand and refer to them when self-editing. It’s one I have next to me whenever I’m editing, and it’s helped me avoid some big mistakes and improve the flow of the story. I’ll include a handy bullet list below so you can download it. 

Spelling and Grammar

Software or a document editor with built-in spelling and grammar error detection is the best course of action. Using Grammarly, the Word spell checker or similar aids will underline your misspelled words and grammar mistakes and make correcting easier in any piece of writing. Make sure to check your punctuation too.

Unnecessary Words

Your sentences get cluttered with filler words that contribute no additional sense. As is the case with excessive use of passive voice, they lessen the impact of your work with weak sentences and make reading it more difficult for your audience.

There is something wrong with how you write your email if the recipient needs to finish it by consulting a thesaurus. You’re making it too difficult for them if they become bogged down in lengthy sentences and cannot take a breath in between them.

It’s time to condense that excessively complex and pompous locution into something more digestible. Stick to the basics.

That doesn’t imply you have to write dully, though. There is room for imaginative expression. There is room to act in a lighthearted manner. However, you shouldn’t make it solely about the “art” of writing. Not the place to say something like that in email marketing.

Your primary goal should be to assist your audience in realizing their full potential. The most effective method is communicating as clearly and straightforwardly as possible.

Fancy Words

Fancy words can make writing more beautiful, but using them doesn’t mean you wrote a good piece. They don’t belong in just any type of written content. When reviewing gardening tools, using words like “preposterous” is overkill.

Passive Voice

The subject of a sentence acts upon it in active voice writing. Verbs, the workhorses of any well-formed sentence, denote this action. Although the use of passive voice is not strictly forbidden, it is recommended that you maintain an active tone in your writing to encourage your readers to continue reading.

If you want to ditch passive voice, keep in mind one popular detective-movie question: who dunnit? Who manufactured the product? Who left the door open? Who edited the manuscript?

It is easy for editors to spot passive voice, but it can be challenging for writers to see it in their work. Your writing will be more effective once you have mastered the skills necessary to recognize and correct these occurrences.

Repeated Words

Repeating words over and over again showcases one thing: you need a better command of English vocabulary. A thesaurus is integral to making the text sound good to the reader. Synonyms are essential in this situation.

I’m guilty of this. My editor used to do an entire pass-through just for my repeated words and fire the manuscript back to me before she continued editing. Now I do a search-and-replace in Word for my ‘vices’ before sending it out. 

Long Sentences

Any lengthy phrases can be written using suitable grammar. However, because lengthy sentences frequently include several concepts, it is simple for the reader to become distracted by them. If you end up with long comma sentences, try to give each idea a sentence of its own.

Phrases You Can Replace in One or Two Words

Using too many words or phrases to create a simple idea is called circumlocution. In your writing, you should never resort to using circumlocutions if at all possible. The only instance you can break this rule is if you believe that your audience is incapable of dealing with a confrontation with the matter at issue and that you need to sugar coat it with a euphemism.

Here’s how to avoid it:

• Before beginning a conversation, give yourself some time to reflect.
• Before you say something or after you’ve said something, think of ways to rephrase it with more straightforward language.
• Studying new vocabulary and phrasing can enable you to express yourself more clearly and concisely.

Sentences and Paragraphs Starting the Same Way

Anaphora is a writing technique that repeats a term in consecutive verses, sentences, or phrases to get a poetic effect. Google doesn’t like that. You should avoid this, especially if you are a web content writer.

A paragraph that begins with numerous successive sentences with the same word will not be a pleasant reading experience. Visitors to your website would become frustrated and click away.

Therefore, even though three identical sentence beginnings might not appear relevant to you in terms of SEO, it’s essential to remember that the essence of an all-encompassing SEO strategy is providing your readers with the most awesome content possible.

Sentence Structure Variety

Your writing may appear to be one extensive list if it has an excessive number of short sentences while becoming confusing if it contains a disproportionate number of long sentences. It is challenging to establish a balance while also varying the sentence forms you use, but the work is well worth it.

Always look for a pattern of successive sentences that begin in the same manner; this can have the unintentional consequence of making you sound like you are going on and on.

Consistent Verb Tense

Decide whether you should write in the past or the present tense for your piece, as well as the perspective from which you will be telling it. Many of your readers will become confused if you flip between tenses and points of view in a way that is not intentional.

Of course, some narratives are intentionally written from different timeframes or points of view. If this is the case with your story, you must be sure you use the appropriate one at the right time.

Consistent Tone

Ensure that your paper’s first sentence sets the mood you desire. The tones you select will change depending on the topic at hand. However, refrain from switching tones in the middle of a composition. Read your text carefully when you finish. Look for tone shifts and fades and correct them.

“Very” and “Really”

These two words will make your writing look weaker with wishy-washy sentences. When you overuse “very” and “really,” the writing becomes dull, impersonal, and filled with unnecessary words.

To avoid using very + adjective, consider a single-word replacement. For instance, turn “very cold” into “freezing.”

“Really” is an adverb that can modify not just adjectives but also verbs. It can also modify adverbs. Therefore, when it is used as an intensifier for an activity, you should alternate using it with a different word, such as truly, strongly, or greatly, while speaking about the action.

A phrase that was once original but has been so overused that its original meaning has been lost is an example of a cliché.

Give some thought to the deeper meaning of the cliché. Use a dictionary to find words or phrases similar to the one you want to replace but not the same. Clichés are mostly unneeded filler in writing; you can eliminate them from your text.

Parallelism

When it comes to good grammar, it’s less about coming together and more about striking a balance. The concept of parallelism in grammar refers to two or more phrases or clauses within a sentence that share the same structure as the rest of the sentence’s grammar.

Your writing has the potential to become more powerful, fascinating, and understandable by utilizing parallelism.

Connecting ideas that are related to one another and highlighting the connections between them is helpful. When a grammatical pattern has been established, the reader does not need to exert as much effort to comprehend your meaning and the concepts you are attempting to convey.

You are aware that some believe that using jargon will make their work appear more intelligent, but you know otherwise. Good writing should not leave the reader feeling confused because of awkward phrases. If a reader needs to use a dictionary to complete a phrase, there is space for growth in the writing you provide.

To ensure that your idea is understood, it is important to utilize language familiar to the audience. There are thousands upon thousands of words in the English language. A jargon-filled expression can almost always be replaced with something simpler and more widely used if you look it up in a thesaurus.

One way to utilize language that “protects” your statements is through the practice of hedging. Your arguments have a better chance of being taken seriously if you use language that displays an appropriate amount of caution. It also illustrates the level of certainty you have with the evidence stated.

To make your text look nice, you must edit your formatting. This includes consistent fonts and sizes for headings, subheadings, and paragraphs. Make sure you use identical bullet points across the entire piece. Consider industry-standard typographical conventions throughout your document (including bold and italic text).

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of good writers with potential out there who can’t avoid writing in passive voice or tell the difference between “its” and “it’s.” Editors that spot these mistakes are less likely to want to work with them.

The editing process is essential on many levels, but it takes a long time to master. Luckily, our checklist will guide you through the process and remind you what to look for when finishing a written piece. Also see our post on the best books for proofreading .

Grammarist is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. When you buy via the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you.

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The Art of Editing: A Guide for Writers

Last updated on December 28th, 2022

Editing is an essential part of the writing process and can make all the difference between a good piece of writing and a great one. In this article, we’ll explore the art of self-editing and provide tips for writers on how to get the most out of the editing process.

From understanding the basics of the editing process to mastering the fundamentals of effective editing, we’ll cover the key elements you need to know to ensure your writing is polished and ready for publication.

The Importance of Self-Editing

Solid editing is the key to excellent writing, and editing your own writing is an essential part of the process. It is important for writers to take the time to read through and edit their work before submitting it for publication.

Editing your work can improve the quality of writing and make it more readable, helping it to stand out from the competition. It can help identify and correct any grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors that may have been overlooked. It can also help make a piece of writing more concise and clear by removing unnecessary words or phrases and identifying any areas of confusion or ambiguity. This helps ensure readers understand the intended message and makes a piece more enjoyable and engaging.

By taking the time to re-read your work, you make sure that your writing is polished and professional and meets the target audience’s standards. 

What is Good Editing?

Generally, the process involves multiple steps with the goal of making your writing compelling, readable, engaging, and professional. Here’s an overview of the types of tasks involved:

• Audit the content for organization and flow. This process includes checking for a logical sequence of ideas, transitions between paragraphs, and the piece’s overall structure.
• Review the content for style and tone, including considering the audience and determining if the writing is appropriate for them. It also involves making sure there is consistency throughout the piece and that the style is suitable for the subject matter.
• Check the content for accuracy by verifying facts, checking sources, and double-checking any quotes.
• Fix any grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Review the content for readability. This involves making sure the content is easy to read, the sentences are not too long, the words are not overly complicated, and overall engaging for the reader.

How Often Should You Edit?

When it comes to editing, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The amount of editing required depends on the individual writer and the type of project they are working on. Here are some general guidelines to follow when considering how often you should edit:

• Always edit after completing the first draft. Even if you’ve done a reasonably thorough job of self-editing, giving your work another pass before submitting it for review is important.
• For shorter pieces, such as blog posts, aim to edit the work at least twice before publishing. This will help you catch any errors or typos that may have slipped through the cracks.
• If you’re working on a more extended project, such as a book, it’s important to edit more frequently. It’s best to break your editing down into several passes and take a break between them to give yourself a fresh set of eyes.
• If you need help determining when to edit, try setting deadlines for yourself and breaking the project down into smaller chunks. This will help you stay on track and work more thoroughly.

Ultimately, the key to successful editing is to make sure you’re taking the time to review your work with a critical eye. The more time and effort you put into the process, the better your final product will be.

Are Editing and Proofreading the Same?

Editing and proofreading are two different steps in creating polished, publishable writing. 

Editing is the process of assessing, correcting, and refining the writing content. This could involve reorganizing or rewriting sections or even completely changing the piece’s focus.

Proofreading, on the other hand, is a much more precise process. Once the editing is complete, proofreading involves reading the text to detect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting errors.

While both involve making corrections, they are two distinct processes. It is essential to understand them both to create high-quality and professional writing.

Editing & Proofreading Tips for Writers

Here’s our checklist of the top editing tips for writers to help you get the most out of your work: 

Don’t Try to Edit While You Write

First of all, editing and writing are two very different things. Writing is the creative process of getting your ideas down on paper. Editing is the process of refining and perfecting the written piece. Trying to do both simultaneously can be a recipe for disaster. When writing, focus on getting your ideas down without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Save the editing for later! 

Start Zoomed Out

Begin by focusing on the big picture first. Avoid the temptation to correct minor mistakes immediately, which can lead to overlooking more significant issues and creating more work for yourself in the long run. For example, you may unnecessarily spend time fixing spelling or grammar on sections that you ultimately rework or remove entirely.

On your first pass, look for high-level issues like plot holes and inconsistencies, pacing issues, scenes that need to be developed further, or character arcs and resolutions. Think of it like an ice cream cone: begin with broad structural changes and then narrow to more specific edits.

One way to get a higher-level perspective of your work is using the following tip:

Read Your Work Out Loud

Reading your written work aloud to yourself is a great way to identify errors and awkward phrasing. When you read something out loud, you are forced to slow down and really listen to what you are saying. This allows you to pick up on words that don’t sound quite right, sentences that don’t make sense, or typos that you might have missed.

Additionally, reading aloud can help you get a sense of the rhythm and flow of your writing, allowing you to make adjustments, so your writing is more engaging and effective.

Talking aloud instead of mumbling to yourself or thinking quietly in your head can be beneficial. To make it even more helpful, try talking to someone else; your pet, a significant other, a buddy, or members of a writing group. However, it may be best not to read to other customers in the café or to a captive audience of other people on public transportation!

Get Feedback from Others

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Having a friend, colleague or mentor read your work with a critical eye can provide you with valuable feedback that you may not have noticed yourself. Please encourage them to be honest and make suggestions for improvement. Be grateful and open and take all feedback constructively. Think of it as an opportunity to learn and grow as a writer. And don’t forget to say thanks by returning the favor somehow! 

Shifting from Passive to Active Voice

Active voice is a writing style in which the subject of the sentence performs the action. For example, instead of writing “the ball was thrown by the boy,” you would write “the boy threw the ball.” When editing, check for any sentences written in passive voice and to rewrite them in active voice. 

Active voice is generally preferred because it gives the reader a more precise and direct understanding of the sentence. It is more concise and is often perceived as more natural and engaging, which can help make writing more exciting for readers. Active voice also tends to be easier to read and understand, making it more enjoyable for the reader.

Cut Out Unnecessary Words and Phrases

Focus on getting your point across with less. Every word should have a purpose, and if a sentence doesn’t contribute to the overall point of the paragraph, prune it. Even if a sentence is well-crafted, it should be removed if it doesn’t have a purpose.

Be ruthless when editing, and don’t be afraid to make bold cuts. Deleting your writing is one of the most challenging things to do as a writer, but it is essential to great writing. 

It’s also important to vary the length of your sentences. Too many short sentences can make writing seem choppy and disjointed. Conversely, too many long sentences can make writing seem overly complex and convoluted. Varying sentence length adds flow and interest to your writing, making it easier to read. Pay attention to the structure of each sentence and make sure the point is easy to understand. 

Reduce Adverbs

Adverbs can weaken your writing by making it overly wordy and indirect. They often require extra words to express the same concept, making your writing sound clunky and awkward. Additionally, many adverbs are vague and don’t give the reader an exact image of what you’re trying to convey. Writing without adverbs can improve your writing to be more precise and clear.

Show & Tell

Showing involves using sensory details, metaphors, vivid language, and other literary devices to create a clear image, while Telling is a straightforward, factual account of what happened. Showing is often preferred to telling because it engages the reader and invites them to form their own interpretations. It also helps to create a more natural and immersive experience for the reader, allowing them to “see” the story unfold in their mind’s eye.

Sometimes you’ll have to recount what happened to the reader for context or framing, but try to show them instead, so they get there on their own, which is more interesting and dynamic.

Check for Grammar and Spelling Errors

Making sure your post is free of grammar and spelling errors will help you ensure that you are putting your best foot forward. Taking the time will give your readers a better experience and help you make a more professional impression. One option to make this process more efficient is to use an online tool such as Grammarly to help you identify areas that need improvement.

A reminder about spellcheckers: they may flag typos and incorrect spelling, but they generally won’t detect when you’ve used the wrong word. For example, if you wrote “there” instead of “their,” the spellcheck won’t pick up on it because “there” is still a word, even though it wasn’t what you meant to write.

Use a Style Guide

A style guide is a set of rules and guidelines for a particular type of writing, such as fiction, journalism, or technical writing. Following the guidelines of your chosen style guide will help ensure consistency throughout your work.

Having a style guide can help make the writing process simpler and more efficient. They can provide helpful information on formatting, grammar, and punctuation. For example, if you are writing a novel, the guide might provide guidance on the correct way to format dialogue, how to punctuate dialogue tags, and how to structure chapters.

Get Professional Assistance

A professional editor can be an excellent resource for ensuring your work is polished and ready to go. Whether you’re writing a book, a blog post, or a business proposal, an editor can help you fine-tune your writing and make sure it is as close to perfect as possible.

Professional editors can also help with proofreading, content editing, and even rewriting sections that need extra attention. With their help, you can be sure that your work is top-notch and will impact the people you are trying to reach.

Bonus: Take Breaks

Editing can be an exhausting process, so don’t be afraid to take breaks. Step away from your work and come back with fresh eyes. This will help you notice mistakes you might have missed during a long editing session. Taking short breaks throughout your process can also help maintain your focus and enthusiasm.

Finally, take your time and be patient. Editing is a skill and a process that requires practice and dedication and is an essential part of writing. It can be a daunting task, but following the tips in this guide can make your work shine. By taking the time to edit your work, you will be able to produce a final product that you can be proud of. You can become an efficient editor and a more confident writer with practice and patience.

Daniel Wainwright

Daniel is a writer with over 10 years of experience crafting compelling content for brands both big and small. When he’s not busy writing, Daniel can be found spending time with his wife and young son, and digging through the stacks in in bookstores and thrift shops.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Editing & Proofreading

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This resource covers process and strategy, not correctness rules. For help there, see our many resources on grammar,    mechanics ,  and punctuation .

There are multiple levels of editing, and terminology surrounding editing is often used interchangeably and fluidly. These levels have some overlap between each other, rather than being totally discrete stages; similarly, developmental and substantive editing are more closely related to the "revision" step of the writing process. The four editing levels are:

• Developmental editing: looking at the overall development of the piece, for instance looking for organizational patterns, missing information, inaccurate information, or anything that might confuse a reader
• Substantive editing: making changes to ensure sections (all the way down to paragraphs and sentences) flow logically from one to the next, ensure each paragraph's topic sentence is present and accurate, adding new necessary material to make connections between ideas, removing unnecessary material
• Copyediting: addressing sentence level issues such as style inconsistencies, subject-verb agreement, confusing or wordy phrasing, missing words, missing or inaccurate citations, and any other mechanical or grammatical issues that may be present
• Proofreading: usually the "last pass" before submission or publication; ensuring everything is correct and no lingering errors such as typos, missing words, missing punctuation, etc. remain.

In general, writers should follow this list down in order when revising and editing, from higher order to lower order concerns (in other words, from bigger or more impactful issues to smaller and less impactful issues).

While many writers edit alone at some point during the process, many writers also edit with a partner or writing group. Working with others is strongly recommended when editing; typically, this stage of the writing process comes last or close to last, meaning that writers are more likely to overlook mistakes or potential opportunities (because they have been working on the text for so long). It can be hard for writers to imagine other possibilities beyond what they have already written. A partner or group brings fresh perspective and a real audience who can offer feedback and tell the writer more about what it's like to read their writing. 

If you're intrigued by the idea of a writing group but not sure where to start, you might check out these resources: 

• OWL Vidcast: Writing Groups & How to Form Them
• Writing Groups Toolkit from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Editing Before Submission

When you're ready to edit, it's important to start with higher order concerns and move down to lower order concerns (as stated above). For higher order concerns, see the editing and revision tips on our Organization and Structure page. For lower order concerns (and sometimes higher order concerns — you might realize something about organization while reading carefully for sentence level issues!), here's a list of strategies that our tutors recommend in sessions with graduate writers. They're usually adaptable to different preferences you might have about working digitally vs. on paper, or working alone vs. with a partner or group. Be creative to find what works for you!

• Read aloud. You can do this yourself, get your computer to read your text out, or ask a friend. Hearing your writing read aloud can help identify places where sentences are confusing or difficult to read, highlight missing words, and create some distance between you and your writing so you can more easily evaluate it.
• Color code. You might do this by highlighting or changing font colors on your screen, using markers on paper, or even without color using font styles and sizes. This technique is useful for various applications, including identifying parts of sentences, identifying particular words or phrases you repeat often, or categorizing sentences by idea to check organization.
• Pick individual issues. When you read through with your focus on only one thing, like correcting comma errors or looking for all the places you write "the ways in which," you're less likely to miss instances of that error by getting distracted with other issues.
• Use checklists. Venues such as journals and conferences often have checklists for authors to use when preparing manuscripts; if you don't have a checklist from a professor, you can sometimes use these checklists to help guide your editing for writing for courses as well. You can also keep a checklist of known issues that your writing partners, professors, tutors, or mentors have mentioned on previous writing assignments to help you look for things you know you do (for instance, one former tutor always put her topic sentences at the ends of paragraphs — she keeps this item in a revision and editing checklist and it's one of the first things she addresses when she edits).

Editing with Feedback

Often, graduate students will be writing or editing with some type of feedback. This could be from peers in a class, from an instructor or mentor, or from a peer reviewer at a conference or journal. If you're in this situation, please see our resources on writing with feedback for more strategies and tips.

Proofreading: 7 Editing Tips That’ll Make You a Better Writer in 2024

by Shane Arthur

on Jan 3, 2024

Freebie: Ultimate Editing Checklist

There are some people who seem to have a natural gift when it comes to writing. Some people seem to be naturally gifted writers.

They manage to get their ideas across clearly and economically, which means that readers can easily follow their word choices. Readers devour their clear, economical prose.

Not only is there a lot of respect for what they have to say, but also the way that they say it. People respect what they say — and love how they say it.

Whenever they publish a new post on their blog, it always gets dozens of comments and hundreds of shares. Every new blog post attracts dozens of comments and hundreds of shares.

It would be great to be as successful as they are, but you don’t know what you need to do to make your writing better. You’d love to emulate their success, but you don’t know how.

The good news is that there are some proofreading and editing tips that you can easily learn which will improve everything you write from now on. Fortunately for you, a few simple proofreading processes and editing tips can transform your writing forever.

Copy Editors and Proofreaders: The Unfair Advantage Popular Writers Try to Hide

You know your writing heroes? Would you be shocked to learn that their writing is no better than yours?

Sure, the final draft is better, but the first draft is just as clumsy, flabby, and downright difficult to read as any of your own writing efforts.

(And, yes, many of them are riddled with the same typographical errors, spelling errors, grammatical errors, and punctuation errors you might be familiar with in your own work.)

What popular bloggers know that many people don’t know (or don’t want to believe) is that a post isn’t finished simply because they’ve said everything they want to say. In many ways that’s just the beginning.

Think of your draft as a rough diamond. Value is hidden inside it and you need an expert gem cutter to reveal its beauty and clarity.

Which is why many top bloggers hire a freelancer — a copy editor, editing service , or professional proofreader (or even proofreading service) — to transform their rough diamonds into gleaming jewels. That’s right — someone else is helping them.

Somewhat unfair, right?

No wonder their writing seems so much better than yours.

Fortunately, copy editing isn’t rocket science. A great writing tool like Grammarly or another grammar checker can help, but it’s actually easy to learn how to proofread and edit your own posts like a pro — if you have someone to show you how.

So let’s break down the rules that’ll help you transform your unremarkable draft into a perfectly polished post.

7 Proofreading & Editing Tips That’ll Transform Your Next Post

Tip #1. don’t pad your prose with empty filler words.

Grammar expletives are literary constructions that begin with the words it , here , or there followed by a form of the verb to be.

( Expletive comes from the Latin explere , meaning to fill . Think smelly literary landfill).

Common constructions include it is, it was, it won’t, it takes, here is, there is, there will be .

The problem? When it , here, and there refer to nouns later in the sentence or — worse — to something unnamed, they weaken your writing by shifting emphasis away from the true drivers of your sentences. And they usually require other support power words such as who , that , and when , which further dilute your writing.

Let’s look at an example:

The there are expletive places the sentence’s focus on some nebulous thing called there instead of the true focus of the sentence — some bloggers . And the writer must then use another unnecessary word — who — that’s three unnecessary words in one unfocused sentence.

Train yourself to spot instances of there , here , and it followed by a to be verb (such as is , are , was, and were ) and adjust your sentences to lead with the meat and potatoes of those sentences instead.

(Tip: Use your Google Doc’s or Microsoft Word’s find functionality and search for there , here, and it and determine if you’ve used an expletive).

Other before-and-after examples:

• It’s fun to edit — Editing is fun
• It takes time to write — Writing takes time
• There are many people who write — Many people write
• There’s nothing better than blogging — Nothing’s better than blogging
• Here are some things to consider: — Some things to consider are:

Caveat: If you previously described an object using there , here , and it, you’re not guilty of an expletive infraction. For example:

• I love proofreading. It’s fun. (This is not an expletive construction since I previously described what it refers to.)

Tip #2. Don’t Weaken the Action with Wimpy Words

Not only does to be conspire with it , there, and here to create nasty grammar expletives, but it’s also responsible for its own class of sentence impairing constructions.

Certain uses of to be in its various forms weaken the words that follow. The solution is to replace these lightweights with more powerful alternatives.

Let’s see some before-and-after examples:

• She is blogging — She blogs
• People are in love with him — People love him
• He is aware that people love him — He knows people love him

Other verbs besides to be verbs can lack strength as well. Use visceral verbs or verbs that express some action. Let’s edit:

• Give out — Offer
• Find out — Discover
• Make it clearer — Clarify
• I can’t make it to the party — I can’t attend the party
• He went to Mexico — He traveled to Mexico
• Think of a blogging strategy — Devise a blogging strategy

Tip #3. Don’t Cripple Your Descriptions with Feeble Phrases

Weak adjectives sap the strength from your writing just as nefariously as weak verbs. Use the best adjectives possible when describing nouns and pronouns. And be mindful that certain words, like really and very, usually precede weak adjectives. Take a look:

• Really bad — Terrible
• Really good — Great
• Very big — Huge
• Very beautiful — Gorgeous

Even if you don’t have a telltale really or very preceding an adjective, you can often give your writing more impact by using stronger alternatives:

• Dirty — Filthy
• Tired — Exhausted
• Scared — Terrified
• Happy — Thrilled

Even worse than using weak adjectives is using weak adjectives to tell your readers what something isn’t as opposed to telling them what something is :

• It’s not that good — It’s terrible
• He’s not a bore — He’s hilarious
• He’s not very smart — He’s ignorant

Tip #4. Trim Flabby Words and Phrases

Today’s readers have limited time and patience for flabby writing. Their cursors hover over the back button, so say what you mean as concisely as possible before your readers vanish:

• But the fact of the matter is — But (Avoid flabby colloquial expressions when possible)
• Editing is absolutely essential — Editing is essential ( Absolutely is redundant)
• You’re going to have to edit your work — You’ll have to edit your work or You must edit your work ( Going to and going to have to are flabby expressions)
• Due to the fact that the editing process takes time, some people avoid it — Because editing takes time, some people avoid it
• Every single person should love editing — Every person should love editing ( Single is redundant; and shouldn’t married people love editing too? 😉 )

Tip #5. Don’t Pussyfoot Around Your Verbs and Adjectives

Nominalization occurs when a writer uses a weak noun equivalent when a stronger verb or adjective replacement is available. Like expletives, nominals usually introduce other unnecessary words when used.

Count the number of words in the before-and-after examples below, and you will witness how badly nominals weaken your writing:

• Give your post a proofread — Proofread your post (verb form)
• Alcohol is the cause of hangovers — Alcohol causes hangovers (verb form)
• The plane’s approach was met with the scramble of emergency crews — The plane approached and emergency crews scrambled . (verb form)
• He shows signs of carelessness — He is careless (adjective form)
• She has a high level of intensity — She is intense (adjective form)

Tip #6. Throw Out the Rulebook on Punctuation

Unless you’re an Engish professor, the rules around punctuation can be complicated, even for the humble comma .

But do you truly need to know the difference between a serial comma, an Oxford comma , and a Harvard comma to write a great blog post ? Of course not. (And it’s a trick question — they’re all the same.)

So my philosophy on commas is simple:

Use commas sparingly if you prefer, but if excluding a comma MAKES YOUR READER STOP READING, add another bleepin’ comma — regardless of what any comma police may say.

By not including a comma between editing and and , I read this sentence and asked myself, “I can ignore editing and people reading my post? Really?” Of course, readers work out the intended meaning a moment later, but by that time, they’ve already stalled.

So, regardless of what comma rule I may break by adding a comma to this sentence, as long as my readers don’t get confused and stop reading, I don’t care — and neither should you.

Let’s look at another example that needs a comma for clarity:

By not including a comma between success and you , I read this sentence and asked myself, “Is success something you can pull out of a golden pen?”

Regardless of your stance on commas, you ultimately want your readers to keep reading. You want them to continue down your slippery slope of powerful content and transitional phrases all the way to your call to action — without getting jarred from their trance to contemplate commas with their inner editors or a Google search.

Tip #7. Be As Manipulative As Possible

You won’t use this technique often, but at least be mindful of it.

When we use two nouns together with the first noun modifying the second, we are using noun modifiers. I like them because they hack the flab from our writing by shortening our sentences. Let’s review some examples:

• Tips on editing — Editing tips
• Great advice on how to boost traffic — Great traffic-boosting advice ( Traffic-boosting is a compound noun here )
• Information regarding registration — Registration information

These sentences have prepositions between the noun sets. Whenever you spot this construction, try to implement this noun-modifying technique.

Proofreading is Easy. So, What’s Your Excuse Now?

These proofreading and editing tips are not magical, mystical, or complicated. In fact, you could consider them downright boring, plain, and inconsequential.

But applying smart proofreading and style guide rules is what separates your heroes from the masses, catapults them to success, and makes readers say, “I don’t know what it is about their writing, but it’s absolutely fantastic.”

Look at it this way: You’ve expended a ton of effort on starting your blog , SEO, content marketing, networking, and social media promotion, all in the hopes that you might make money blogging so you can quit your job and work from home . So when they arrive, shouldn’t your next post blow their socks off too?

And how about your last post and the one before that? (Yes, you can apply these rules to your old posts too!)

Or are you one of those writers who think they write well enough already? Well, you might be surprised by just how many of these crimes against clarity you’re committing.

Open one of your posts right now and see how many of these editing tips you can apply.

Read each word of your post. Is the word an expletive? Is it a weak verb? A weak adjective? Does it represent nominalization or flab or break any of the other rules mentioned in this post?

Run each word of your post through this checklist of editing tips. You will find something to improve. And your writing will be 100% more powerful as a result.

Because the search for perfection never ends.

And your writing is never too good.

Sure, proofreading and editing take time.

And yes, you’re already busy enough.

But your writing heroes edit, and they land the guest posts, book deals, and exposure you only wish you could.

So, take a break from #amwriting and start #amediting right now.

Your success will thank you.

And so will I.

Shane Arthur

Shane Arthur is a former copy editor for Jon Morrow’s kick-butt Guest Blogging Certification Program and a proud evangelist for Jon's Content Marketing Certification Program , which teaches people just like you how to become freelance writers. Go here to learn more about it.

The ultimate toolkit for becoming one of the highest-paid writers online. Premium training. Yours for free.

Written by Shane Arthur

316 thoughts on “proofreading: 7 editing tips that’ll make you a better writer in 2024”.

I love posts that go into specifics – rather than those that make general points, which you can’t really get a handle on.

So this really hits the mark for me.

One thing though – each of the seven points would’ve been great serialised into seven mini posts over seven days (+ an intro post).

For me, it was the perfect material to break down into bite-size chunks – with something new to look forward to every day.

Mind you, that’s seven whole new attention-grabbing headlines to write.

Keven: Writing one editing post is stressful enough! It must be error free after all, right? 🙂 Kidding aside, that’s a good idea, and I’ll consider doing so.

Too right, Shane, it is stressful.

Done a few of those types of post myself.

But, as we both know, you have to put the legwork in to get any sort of impact.

Looking at the post above, I can see you’ve done loads of that already.

I hate to rain on your parade; BUT, you broke your own rules. !!! ??? (e.g. see the next-to-the-last line in #6)

AND, gerunds are NOT nouns. PLUS, you didn’t get the comma thing correct, either.

Sorry. (“Every party needs a ‘pooper’ that’s why you invited me.”)

Hi Shane! Great article! I am planning to use it as a checklist for my editing. Do you know of an actual more comprehensive checklist for editing that we can use? For some reason I find that using a checklist each time, helps me remember the points and ultimately I don’t have to look at the list any more. I appreciate any advice you have on that.

@Chris: Glad you liked it. Not sure about a checklist.

How about: http://thewritelife.com/25-editing-tips-checklist-form/

Other than that I have resources I like to visit: http://www.kokedit.com/ckb.php http://grammar.about.com/ http://www.grammarphobia.com http://www.copyediting.com/home

@Chris: forgot one more. She’s fantastic: http://www.righttouchediting.com/

Fantasmic! (Disney word.) My son recently completed his PhD in English and he talks like that too. He had me read William Zinsser’s book, “On Writing Well”. Even the chapter titles; Simplicity, Clutter, Words, Usage — all short. Just the opposite of what my high school students do when writing essays. Thanks for the reminders and suggestions.

@John: I have that book. As an extra assignment to all the readers here wanting to test their editing skills, buy this book (a book on cutting the clutter and writing well, after all) and try to see if you can spot any instances where Zinsser could have cut his own flab. Yes, I’ve already done it (I’m so bad)!

So I’m reading your post, Shane, and I’m thinking, “Man, this is good. This is *really* good.” Even though I know it’s a guest post, it seems like it’s something Jon wrote.

Then I read your byline and I see that you’re one of Jon’s editors. 🙂

Great work, Shane. I’m bookmarking this post!

@Mark: Thank you. Yeah, Jon’s a fantastic writer. He’s a master of the smooth transition down the slippery slope of content. I study everything his writes.

Woah! What a beautiful list of information. Too much. A good thing is how much I’ve learned from this. Time to share it on some G+ communties, it’s that good!

@Shawn: So glad you found it useful.

rip google+

Wow! Well said. I love the examples! Thanks for sharing, Shane.

@Elke: A few examples are worth a few thousand words of description aren’t they! Glad you found them useful.

Always great stuff!

@Gail: Thank you.

I know this…

I forget this…

I need this…

Thanks to your post that I am now printing for reference with every new post I write, one day I won’t forget this!

And yeah, you got that “Jon” style!

Thanks for a great post!

I’m a professional writer, and I learned something. I mean, I knew the general principles (and I know the rules about the Oxford comma, too!), but you explain the how and the why in ways I hadn’t thought about. Like noun modifiers — I DO that, but I never thought about it that way. This is great. I want to geek out on this post. It makes me wish I were still teaching writing, because these are all such great ways of explaining why the edits are better and how to apply them to different situations.

This is why you remain my favorite editor, Shane. 😉 One of these days when I write that next great novel, I’ll be sure to seek your services. Hopefully, we won’t be in wheelchairs by then. 😀

@Lisa: I truly appreciate you saying that. And by all means, geek out! 😉 I know I geek out with editing — to the point it drives my writer-brain crazy.

@Cathy: (Sorry, I put my reply to Lisa on your comment). You know I blush easily! But thanks. You’re a fantastic writer of crime drama, so get busy finishing that novel.

Fantastic cellular-level breakdown, Jon, thank you!

My apologies for misstating this article’s authorship, Shane 🙂

@Kelley: No soup for you! 😉 Just kidding. No worries at all. Tis an honor to be mistaken for Jon Morrow anyhow.

Excellent, Shane! As time goes on I think I’ve been getting the hang of it and eliminating some of these bad habits – learning as I go. But I know there are gaps I need to close. It’s so helpful to know the top things you look for.

I’ll be referring to this often. Thanks so much!

@Leanne: Thank you. We’ll always have gaps in our writing. And just think how boring life would be if we already mastered them all and had nothing to strive for. 😉

Great article and I’m definitely bookmarking it! Reading about doing this is easier than doing it! One of the reasons Stephen King is my favorite writer is because he is the master of the edit. His stories flow. Great tips for creating dynamic content. Implementing the art of the edit will ensure your article is read! Thanks!

@Randy: I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I had help from Glen, Jon’s other GuestBlogging editor (and from a few of my trusted associates).

Great tips, Shane! Flashbacks of my high school English class now cloud my mind–in a good way! Am I the only one who enjoyed diagramming sentences and slaying passive voice? HA! ~Angela

@Angela: Thanks. I remember getting transferred to an elementary school for one year and the teacher being awful — so much so that when I returned to my regular school a year later, I had forgotten how to read. I was in 2nd grade at the time and I had to use one of those reading machines to help me, and I had to sit at the “slow table” and read the Dick & Jane books until I caught up. I remember telling myself how bad that sucked and that I’d do whatever necessary to master language (no wonder I read The Little, Brown Handbook 10 times before reaching college).

This came at a perfect time. I am launching a new website with a blog. I’m going to bookmark this to refer back to as I enter this new world. Thanks!

@Sheri: Good luck with the blog. You’re welcome.

My husband Jim and I read through your post together, admitting what we were each guilty of (we write & edit posts as a team). Thank you for the fabulous lesson, which I just added to my bookmarks!

@Beth: You’d be surprised at how many professional writers AND publishing houses are guilty of proofing and editing errors. Last year I looked through a buddy’s book that was published by a major publishing house and I found 75 proofing errors (and they used three proofreaders on the project). How in bleep does that happen!

Thanks for the post. As William Strunk Jr. said, “Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!” I often find wimpy constructions and needless words in my first drafts. It’s sometimes frustrating, because I know it’d save me so much time if I could simply banish them from my lexicon in the first place. (I’d save hours by avoiding them.) But losing the flab in the second draft is pretty thrilling.

P.S. I’ll never stop using “pretty.”

@Molly: Haha! You’re Pro-Pretty! I understand. For me, that word is like oatmeal, just never agreed with me. 🙂

Great stuff Shane!

Indeed, even the greatest of writers have to go through multiple edits and drafts in order to come up with a product that clearly and concisely gets the message across to their readers.

As they say – write drunk and edit sober!

@Darly: I like to say, “Write drunk, hire a sober editor.” 🙂 This post when through a ton of iterations. Usually after I write a post, I spot errors that I have to frantically email the blog owner about. Luckily, that hasn’t happened … yet.

As I recall, “they” was Ernest Hemmingway…

Thank you Shane for this insightful post. Editing tips are underutilized on line. I have clearly under edited many of my posts. Thank you again, I will be editing my posts much further from now on.

@Paul: Thanks man. Just curious, what did you think of the opening where we used strike-through text. I’d like to know what readers were thinking when they saw this. I wanted people to jump right into the world of edited text to get a feel for what receiving a document with Track Changes from an editor is like.

Shane, I just read this and I want to happy-dance. (But I’m in a public space, with limited acceptance for that)

Will be dancing later tonight, blissfully happy about being able to edit my posts (I’ve struggled with it before. Bookmarking this page right now) Thank You!

Brilliant. That’s the best introductory section I’ve seen in a long time – possibly ever. Talk about illustrating your point – that was great. Neatly done. The strike through text was really powerful … I had a notion as to what the post was going to be about from the good headline, but the strikethrough drove it home. I loved it!

@David: So glad to hear that about the strike-through section. I was worried about that.

y’know, what it did was clearly demonstrate problems with my own writing. I’m sure that applies to 90% of people when they first come to this blog. Relating to your readership that quickly – without hitting them over the head with ‘YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG’ was smartly done.

@Lina: As an editor, I am unqualified to stop you from happy dancing. But as an observer, I’d love to see that! 🙂 You’re welcome.

This is a gem of a post. Simple, real-world examples. I wish they taught creative writing like this in college.

@Ersan: Thank you kindly. Not sure about what the colleges teach, but (wink, wink) my affiliate link on the bottom may be of some use to you. 🙂

Can ‘This is simply an awesome post.’ be written as ‘Terrific post!’ simply?

@Avastabik: Sure. My favorite quote is, “Language follows rules; it doesn’t follow orders.”

This is truly great information – I’m guilty of a ‘few’ of those however, sometimes it’s nice to “fluff” things. Great advice though, will use these guidelines for subsequent posts! 🙂 Have a great one Shane! -Iva

@AwesomelyOZ: I agree. Some blogs don’t mind using expletives, or fluff. Know the audience — that’s the ultimate style guide.

I can’t remember the last time I read every word of a blog post.

I, like most other blog readers, usually skim through posts.

But you’ve contributed a wonderful piece, Shane.

I wish to see more posts of this quality and value on major blogs.

But there are a few points where I disagree with you.

In general, I think a lot of the times we need to use certain words or phrases just to create emphasis in our writing.

It’s not about grammar or structures.

It’s more about getting your point across exactly the way you would do if you were talking to someone in person.

But overall, a brilliant post with lots of value.

@Jawad: I agree with that you said. As I replied earlier to someone else, “Language follows rules; it doesn’t follow orders.”

Shane, as always, you educate and entertain. I’ve just clipped this post to my Evernote. Thanks!

@Mitch: I’m not saying, “You’re welcome,” until you publish more books! 😉

Great post Shane! It’s in my Evernote.

I’ve been guilty of beginning a sentence with “there,” and then think to myself, “You know the sentence sucks. Rewrite it.” 🙂

@Amandah: Hello again, CCC superstar. Glad to see you again. Thanks.

Very good advice Shane. After reading this post, I have a strong urge to edit all my previous posts. Your first point in particular gives me much trouble. Some times I detect the use of extraneous words but most of the time they escape and creep into my writing.

I disagree with you on #3 however. I feel that sometimes one word substitutions subdue the effect that I am trying to convey. In some situations they can help but I don’t think that you should always replace phrases. I can’t think of any example at the moment though.

Great post. Thank you for writing this.

@Akshat: Always go with what you feel is the best choice for your audience, regardless of what I or anybody else says. Ultimately, we can list guidelines, but you know your writing and your audience best.

This post is so good I can’t share it enough! Thanks for putting it so well. 🙂

@Dana: Thank you kindly. Truly.

Excellent write-up Shane! Very helpful and clear examples. The more I write, the easier it is to look at my posts for editing and clarity. I’ll have this one bookmarked!

@John: Glad to hear that. Before long you will spot certain grammar construction as if you are Neo fighting The Matrix.

Great article! I can’t wait to implement it in my writing!

@Tracy: Exactly what I wanted to see! Got get ’em!

Excellent. Thank you! I run an online writing group and will be adding this to our editing resources.

Even though I know the things on this list, I’m still guilty of bloating my writing with extras. It’s always good to have a reminder.

@Leigh: “It’s always tood to have a reminder,” … and another set of editing eyes! 🙂 Glad you liked it.

@Shane: You just misspelled “good” as “tood”. Be more careful. Sincerely, Editor Brain.

As a recovering English teacher, I’m thrilled that a new hope has arisen for our language that is so often shredded online by bloggers more interested in quantity than quality. I second the comments about the brilliance of the intro, and the nitty-grittiness of the entire post is refreshing and highly useful. (And, yes, I just made up a word while commenting on a post about the English language.)

Thanks, Shane, for such dedication in creating such a detailed and, no doubt, exhausting post to write and edit. Lots of “share” love coming your way on this one!

@Cory: I’ve learned a ton from reading obscure academic websites specializing in writing and editing. Those sites don’t rank well with the search engines, but they’re golden. And if anybody would be able to spot something I did wrong, my money would be on a recovering English teacher, so I’m honored.

I am a creative writer as well, have been studying creative writing for years, and I have never seen a better explanation of these rules anywhere else. Great post! I’m bookmarking this for reference in all my writing. Active vs. Passive sentences are one of the tricky things I’ve always struggled with, but now I have the answers (and examples) to help me. Thank you so much.

@Danyelle: Thank you so much. Creating this article added quite a few gray hairs to my head, so replies like your feel great.

The more you make these edits, the more they’ll become second nature.

I bookmarked this post and just shared it on Google+. Thanks!

@Hashim: I mentioned above that at some point, you will see edits like Neo sees zeros and ones in The Matrix. When that happens, it’s one hell-of-a-good feeling.

Great primer on concise writing of any kind! I work in a university writing center, and I’ll be referring students to this post.

@Connie: As I mentioned above, I have a ton of respect for academic folks specializing in language. Most of them could clean my clock in editing/proofing skills, so I try to learn as much as possible from them.

Great post Shane. I’ll never forget your praise of my copywriting.

Most posts on grammar, style, etc. make me go cross-eyed or start seeing words falling off the page. But this is a post I’ll be reading over and over.

I believe in writing tightly but I also think “flow” is important. As is character. Editing your writing should take into account both. Otherwise it loses some of its bite.

@Tom: I love your writing, man! I agree with your “flow” comment. You will be the best judge of what is best for your own writing and audience. Write on!

Your post popped in my email box as I was about to hit “publish”! Your headline, of course, stopped me in my tracks and I’m so glad it did! 15 short minutes of editing using your tips were transformational. This is definitely going into my favorites. Thanks for sharing your expertise. 🙂

@Yelena: That’s the kind of comment I love to read! Without a doubt, an editing pass will improve a blog post. We see this with EVERY post that goes through Jon’s program.

BONUS TIP When proofreading or editing your post, read each word as if you are a robot. Don’t laugh! Try it right now. Read each word slowly as if you are a sluggish robot. This will help you not read past each word as you try to spot errors. If role play isn’t your cup of tea, click the Show/Hide Paragraph Marks button in MS Word. As you will see, it.puts.a.dot.between.each.word.which.will.show.you.down. See how that works!

Before long, you won’t even need to hit that button.

Thanks for the bonus tip! I just had a vision of R2-D2 and C-3PO”pop” into my head.

You have come perilously close to breaking a rule for guest bloggers, Shane: Don’t write a post so good and so popular that it makes your blogging host jealous. Always good to throw in an error to make them look good.

Really, though, it’s a great post I’ll be referring to in the future. Thanks. And I’ll come back to read Jon’s posts, too.

Fits right in with “Don’t beat your boss on the golf course.”

@Andy: I can’t find my original comment to you. It disappeared. You made me laugh though. Thanks.

Awesome post! I’ll have to watch out for starting sentences with “There are/is.”

@Alicia: Those expletives are such a sore spot of mine that I went and wrote a short book (which for the life of me, I don’t know why I’m still sitting on) dealing with those gremlins. I hope you will strengthen your writing by using less of them.

I don’t know why either. 😉

@Andy: Haha! You came perilously close to making me lol+projectile spittle.

Thanks for the kind words.

Great blog – thanks! As I was reading, something struck me. I wonder if writing all those “500 word” essay assignments through the childhood years of schooling, trains one to come up with all the “filler words”.

@Donna: I”m not a fan of making students write a specific amount of words, but I did love my creative writing class in middle school that let us write for 15 minutes at the beginning of the class. We didn’t have a word-count goal; we just had to think of something creative to write. Usually, I’d think of something so creative, I couldn’t even finish the idea in time. The emphasis should be on the love of the writing itself and not the constraint of word count.

Shane, to steal one of Mark Twain’s terms, this one’s a corker. I’ve read many engaging grammar books (“Eats, Shoots and Leaves” and “Woe Is I” come to mind), and you deliver the same refreshingly clear information without being didactic. I think you need to have a slam poetry session with Grammar Girl and record it for posterity.

@Tom: Thanks, man! Read the first book. Loved it. Need to get the second. I’m humbled that you compare this to such great books.

Excellent, actionable tips! I’m printing this puppy out and posting it next to my monitor. Thx for taking the time to share, Shane!

@Lori: You are most welcome. Was my pleasure. After all, “Because the message matters.” 🙂

Thank you for the useful edits! Cutting out unnecessary words can be daunting. I just printed out your post for a quick reference. Thank you!

@Krista: You’re welcome. Once these editing tips are under your belt, you can get back to enjoying the good things in life. 🙂

Great tips. I’m constantly trying to improve my writing. I’m going to put this post on my WordPress Weekly I put out this Friday.

@Nick: Thanks for putting this on the Weekly. Much appreciated indeed.

Great article Shane! I’ll be using it as a double check guide before pressing “post” from now on 🙂 Thank you

@Rayne: Thank YOU. Glad you enjoyed it enough to say that.

Shane, If you were a baseball pitcher your post was a fastball right down the middle, the pitch everyone swings at but few hit.

Great post on sentence fixing and keeping the reader engaged.

@David: Love the analogy. As long as the writers reading this post are the fans watching the game and not the people trying to hit the ball, because we want them to hit it out of the park! 😉

Thank you Shane for clarifying how important editing is. I did not realize that a post was not done until it was edited until I came into the Boost Blog Traffic course. : )

@Esther: Thank you. Those red track changes can truly drive that point home, huh? 🙂

Bonus Tip #2 Don’t forget the proofreader mindset either – http://www.copyblogger.com/proofreading-tips/

Flense the flabby words, expunge adverbs and adjectives, tighten your prose and fight for your own brand of punctuation — standard stuff, and sound advice, as far as it goes. Which is why it’s propounded by every good grammarian.

And yet as an editor I’ve found these interminable lists often intimate the tyro into inaction — and , if that’s not enough, we further confuse the tyro by finding countless examples of good literature that breaks every rule mentioned here and elsewhere.

George Orwell wrote the best and most timeless essay on the subject that I’ve ever come across, but even he has the good sense to note that in his very essay readers will no doubt find him guilty of many literary crimes he’s railing against.

My point is, don’t ignore these and all other sensible writing rules, but do realize that these rules will not, in the end, make or break your literature necessarily.

The biggest rule of all?

Beware the overly proscriptive:

There is a formula (of sorts) to writing, but that formula should always be framed in terms of principles, and not concretes.

Here, if I may, are some actual examples of do’s-and-do-not’s that I’ve recently read, all of which were taken from real-life editors and writers:

“Do no begin your story with weather.”

“Do not use ellipses.”

“Do not use the word commence.

“Do not use the word basically. ”

“Do not use the word very.

“Never end a chapter with your character falling asleep.”

“Never begin your chapter with your character waking up.”

“Do not use adverbs in your dialogue tags.”

“Cut virtually all your adverbs.”

“Never use of if it can be cut.”

“Never use that if it can be cut.”

“Never say in order to but only to. ”

“Never use would except to project the future.”

“Do not use italics for emphasis.”

“In your dialogue tags, never say ‘said John’ but always keep it ‘John said’.”

“Never introduce dialogue with ‘John said’ but always put the tag after the dialogue.”

And so on, ad infinitum.

This method of teaching ignores the method by which the human mind works — which is to say, in principles — and chooses instead to overload the brain with endless commands that come without explication of fundamentals. And yet it is only by grasping the fundamentals behind any given thing that people can grasp the full nature of what they’re doing.

If you grasp the nature of what you’re doing, you’ll never run out of material.

If, on the other hand, you never discover the principles behind the specific rules you’re commanded to obey, you’ll never feel secure in your craft or sullen art, and I indeed know successful writers who live in fear that they’ll never be able to duplicate their first and even second success. The fear comes because they’ve not learned the nature of writing, though they have polished their writing in large part by memorizing a great many do’s and do not’s.

I assure you that every single rule you’ll ever read has been successfully broken by writers whose books and essays and stories endure and will continue to endure. The people who memorize and compile these laundry lists, however, do not, for the most part, write durable literature.

Timeless literature captures some aspect of the human condition — “the human heart,” as Faulkner called it — and the technical do’s and don’ts are and always will be secondary.

One man’s opinion.

@Ray: Man, that was an excellent comment you left. My favorite quote regarding language is, “Language follows rules; it doesn’t follow orders.” All of the edits I do for Jon’s GuestBlogging program specifically state that the “suggestions” I make are just that — the author always has the final say. I try to limit what I do to techniques that state what needs stated in as few words as possible to keep the modern busy reader from bolting. Definitely not overly proscriptive.

“Don’t Cripple Your Descriptions with Feeble Phrases.”

I am guilty of this. Most of the times, I don’t find the appropriate words to express what I want to convey.

@Vicky: I would guess that most of the time, time is the reason for not finding the appropriate word. If you have longer to work on a post, you’ll have more time to find that perfect word you’re looking for.

Thank you Jon, this article will help my writing a lot!!!

@Vivica: You’re welcome.

Excellent post!

Shane, I’m impressed by this post and glad the other Mitch shared it on G+. I use more words than needed often, and if I’m storytelling that’s not a bad thing. Other times… I need to be better.

Of course you just validated me vs. Mitch about commas and let he still liked the post. 🙂

@Mitch: Mitch and his commas! 🙂 I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for “just sharing”.

I always thought my editing was okay, but you have some tricks here that will make it shine even brighter. Thank you, Shane!

@Dr. Rie: Considering your background, I’m honored that you would say that. Saw your website. I now know who to visit when I need some screenwriting tips. 🙂

It’s great when a brilliantly informative post comes along right when you need it ! Thanks Shane perfect timing.

@Siita: I’m all smiles now. Thank you.

Shane, you’re welcome to tips whenever you need them! 🙂

This is such a fantastic resource! I’ve got it bookmarked 3 ways til Friday and then some. I am looking forward to sharing this with authors I copy edit.

@Shannon: You are so kind. Thank you.

Loved your Fibro poem. Hang in there.

Please, please, please, don’t publish any more posts like this one! My niche is already too competitive, and if you keep teaching people to write more simply, clearly and powerfully, you take away what little edge I have. Whose idea was this, anyway?

@Susanna: Okay, you made me laugh. I’ll have a chat with Jon about this. 🙂

Tight as a duck’s ass post! Clearly stated. Hugely informative. Nothing wasted.

@Mark: Okay, you just made me bust out laughing. Checking to see if tightduckediting url is available.

P.S. No, YOU rock … literally.

Oh, so guilty of so many points here! Must go back and edit older posts (but while trying to keep my voice intact. Writing is so hard, remind me why we do it, please).

Thank you so much for adding the examples, I even took notes when reading 🙂 Keep up the good work!

@Christine: I”m glad you enjoyed it. I’d say, we write, because me must. 🙂

There was a lot of very good information in this blog post. This was a great post.

I embarrass myself every day when editing my work. “Why did you jabber on like that?” I ask myself as I whittle a 20 word sentence down to 10.

@Rob: Nothing to be embarrassed about. Our drafts should be a creative flow free from the constraints of our editor brains. Write on!

This is just great! Guilty of most, if not all of the mistakes you’ve listed. Now I need to edit everything I’ve every written, or simply start writing better. Thanks!

@Eva: I’d start with the new stuff. 🙂

This is probably one of the best articles I have read on writing compelling content! I will be keeping this as a guide for everything that I write from now.. from proposals to blogs! Thanks a lot Shane! Enough said! Time for me to share this post!

@Arijit: So glad to hear you say that. Thanks.

Great post for writers seeking to be better writers – I should know :-] Editing is more important than writing just as playing music is more important than writing it down. Editing, I call it trimming (mostly), is also a page out of Nature’s teachings: Pruning and trimming are not an end to growth, but redirecting the way of growth.

PS. “In order to” is one filler that always rubs me the wrong way – in writing and in speaking. [No offense to anyone who might have used the term here :-]

With best wishes for 2014, Beat

@Beat: Thank you. I like your pruning analogy. The only thing I love more than editing is gardening. West wishes back to you.

Awesome. Essential reading. Thank you for sharing your expertise in such a clear and effective way.

@Jeremy: My pleasure.

Really enjoyed how you chased the little rabbits out the fields! Enlightening, in lightning quick style…

@Les: I’m hunting wabbits! 😉

I’ll never forget the first time Shane edited one of my articles during Jon’s first guest blogging class. Ouch. My writing has never been the same. Thanks for the great resource! You are the king of concise prose.

@Todd: Haha! That’s how I feel when Glen, Jon’s structural editor, gets hold of my writing. He sees bigger-picture flaws that I miss. But, once the ego sting passes, you know you’re better off for that extra set of trained eyes. Write on!

I’ve waited for this article! (Just rewrote that sentence, following rules here!)

Adding the form of the verb “to be” is one of my pet peeves. It takes all the action out of a sentence. Almost like passive voice.

Thanks for sharing. And great to have Jon Morrow alert me about it.

Charlie Seymour Jr

@Charlie: Sharing is in my blood. My pleasure.

Great Post. Love it

@Nawaz: I love the love. Thanks.

A checklist is especially helpful when writing and editing late at night on deadline. Thanks for the useful post!

@Catherine: And especially on those “moved up” deadlines.

Hi Shane. I took an editing course in college and believe I was the only one with a big smile on my face because I love editing! It’s like working crossword puzzles, in my book. Anyway, the course took us through the Gregg Reference Manual, so I’m familiar with most of your tips. However, I really like how you simplified it all and gave great examples. Thank you for another great reference tool.

@Pat: Hello fellow lover of the edit! A crossword puzzle is a great analogy of what editing feels like.

Shane! My bestest buddy giving awesome advice. I’m usually a no fluff writer but I think I better look again! I got no excuses!

@Liss: Miss your writing. Glad to see you again after so long. Let me know if you find anything in your writing that you improved.

I’m guilty of this crime. Editing old, error-filled posts would send me to twilight zone, for sure. I’ve tried proofreading, editing my posts but only a dozen come to fruition. Proofreading, editing hundreds is no joke, eh. Geez, I’ve gotten about as much encouragement from this post. Woohoo!

@Jeulyanna: Keep at it. You’ll get better the more you do. May not feel like it, but you will.

Thank you, Shane and Jon! Fantastic post and something I don’t pay enough attention to. The way you set it up made me want to read all the way to the end. Nice work!

@Amy: Exactly what I like to hear. Thanks.

I loved the graphic opening of this post; great way to illustrate the point! In my own writing, I’ve found that trying to keep my posts to a certain word count (250-400) helps me to be more concise and lose some of the expletives. However, I will be more conscious of fillers after reading this. I’ll be bookmarking this post to refresh my memory!

@Brenda: I wrote an article for Copyblogger about proofreading and I did something similar in the opening (link is in the article above). I knew I wanted to do something similar to drive the point home in this post. Go glad you appreciated that.

Thank you for this. Great tips, succinctly presented.

I consider myself a pretty decent writer, but I’m probably guilty of more of these offenses than I realize. I’ll keep this handy from now on, this is a great resource.

Thanks again.

@Dean: Thanks. You can put these tips right next to those yummy brews of yours. 🙂

This is the best explanation of passive and active voice I have seen, and it doesn’t even refer to itself as such. Saved and referenced. Thank you.

@Hermit: Thank you kindly.

I’m fairly new to blogging + being acquainted with your blog. So far every piece I read brought outstanding value. Thank you for your work!

@Ana: So glad you are benefiting from what we write. Write on!

So far this is the most useful article on blogging I’ve read. I can’t believe how many of those mistakes I’ve made… Thank you so much for posting this!

@Stan: So glad you liked the post. Write on!

Thanks, Shane! I’ll forward this to my next guest blogger. She’ll appreciate it. The strikethrough introduction completely grabbed my attention. It worked like a film trailer and precisely communicated what would follow. I woke up and said “yes, yes!” before I’d read the meat. What a relief to find clarity online, first thing this morning! Thanks, again.

@Katharine: Exactly the type of comment I love to read. You’re welcome. Glad you enjoyed it.

Formatting is so important! I try to use rich media in every blog post I put together to keep the reader engaged throughout their reading experience.

Let’s do something fun for those who subscribed to the comments. Put in another comment with the url of a short post you’d like me to look at. I’ll see if I can tighten the post(or a portion of it if it’s too long) and post my suggestions in the comments. I may only do one of these. Just had a crazy thought to try it.

On second thought, tweet me the url at @shanearthur so this post doesn’t get hammered with comments in moderation. First come, first served.

I usually don’t subscribe to blog comments, but subscribed to this one to remind me to come back and share it. Thanks for the offer. Here’s my short blog: http://www.writing-resources.org/the-power-of-words-in-10-words-or-less/

@Rob: Okay, I gave it a quick pass.

“““““““““““““““““““ I found it so moving, it’s actually hard for me to write [I’m struggling to write] about it, but I will, because it says everything you need to know about the power of words in just a few words. “I’m blind. Please help,” the sign says [reads] and while the man gets a few small donations, most people pass him by [ignore him] or indifferently toss him a coin or two. Then a young woman walks up to the man, takes his sign and writes another message. Soon, just about everyone who passes by is giving [gives] the man pocketfuls of change. The girl returns later and the man asks her what she did to his sign. “I wrote the same,” she says, “but in different words.” Finally, we’re let in on the secret. “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it,” the rewritten sign says [reads]. Of course, it’s a video played by actors, so there’s no proof [we can’t prove]the new message would have had its desired effect in the real world. Nevertheless, I was moved by the words because they enabled me to enter the man’s dark world. That, in a nutshell, is the secret to writing powerful words. In the first instance, the man was stating the fact [stated] that he was “blind” and needed help, but his words failed to move passersby because blindness was an abstract concept to them. When they read, “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it,” they were able to [could] empathize with him because the word “see” was part of their reality[,]((without this comma, this reads as if the word “see” is also a part of him inability to see)) and his inability to see the beautiful day they were enjoying was something they could relate to. As I proofread this short blog, I made a small change I think helped improve the text. Where it says, “pocketfuls of change” now, it said “large amounts of change” before [I changed large amount of change to pocketfuls ]. “Large amounts of change”[don’t need the quotes here] is such a bland phrase, but you can see and feel pocketfuls of change. What can you do to make a better connection [nominalization – connect more or better connect] with your readers?

“““““““““““““““““““ (All of my strike-through text didn’t copy over so I hope manually putting in the html tags works when I hit submit.)

Thanks so much for making these corrections! Some seemed like little things, but your changes made the text read more smoothly. I use a few phrases habitually and don’t even notice them. Examples:

were able to (could) stating the fact that (stated) there’s no proof (we can’t prove)

Now that you’ve pointed them out, they sound cringe-worthy. Thanks again.

@Rob: My pleasure.

Shane’s Seven Simple Slashing Tips for Edifying and Electrifying your Boring and Blasé Blog. Thanks! 😉

@Penelope: Love the alliteration you used there! Can’t stop reading it. 🙂

Thanks, Shane! I love to slip into Dr. Seuss mode at times. Kind breaks up the monotony. 😉

Really a piece of gold here! Thanks so much for this eye opening post 🙂

@Jaanika: Wow! I would have settled or silver or bronze. 🙂 Thanks for reading (all the way from Estonia, huh?)

Thanks Shane! The hardest part for me is getting the thoughts out of my head and onto the computer. I think the reason is that I tend to overanalyze and pay too much attention to how the words flow (before I even hit the keys!) Get your ideas down first, worry about structure later. Editing should be the fun part. (well, maybe)

@John: Exactly! Tell your inner editor to take a hike until it’s his time to perform! Seriously, train your writer brain to ignore all instructions while writing. Or give yourself a rule that you can’t hit the delete or backspace keys until you’ve finished the rough draft. Thanks for reading.

This is great. Thanks!

@LittleOwl: You are welcome. Love your handle. 🙂

Wonderful tips and suggestions. Your edits made everything more concise and I’m a huge proponent of not wasting people’s time, since time, in my opinion, is your most precious asset. Something that you can’t really put a price on because you can never buy it back, so be very careful how you spend yours 🙂

Looking forward to more excellent articles and tips in the future.

@Greg: Thanks man. I’m already thinking of the next one.

Great article thank you. Exceptional tips I will be sure to use 🙂

@Karyn with a Y: U’re welcome with a U. 😉

Excellent article. The entire opening section reminded me of similar tips and suggestions that Henneke Duistermatt makes on her wonderful blog, http://www.enchantingmarketing.com/ . Readers who found this post helpful should definitely check it out.

@Carole: Thank you. Yes, I’m quite familiar with Henneke (she knows me too). She’s a solid writer.

Hi Shane, Your 7 points great article is like 7wonders for me. Keep coming with nice write up often as usual so that we can be educated through every masterstrokes of yours. Thanks a ton.

@Shiwangi: Thank you kindly. I’m thinking of my next post right now. Perhaps a list post of the 400 flabby words and phrases I have on file. Not sure yet.

Hi Shane – loved the fact that you visually edited the first 18 lines of this post. Seeing the editing process is such a help for writers who are in the learning stages of how to tighten their prose/edit.

When I taught writing, I came up with a few tips for my students. The first was having them ask this question as they edited someone else’s writing: “Can you make one strong word do the work of two or three weak words?” All of the examples you use in #1, #2 and #3 are perfect examples of how this question works.

Reading aloud when you’re sure what you’ve written is in final form is a great way to catch any mistakes and hear the rhythm of your content.

And, for those pesky spelling errors? I’d encourage my students to read their essays backwards, starting with the last word, moving the eye from left to right. Your eyes “read” individual words out of sequence, forcing any spelling errors to stand out.

If I may, one last comment: writing poetry, even bad poetry, is a great exercise for cleaning up prose; it heightens your awareness for the power of individual words on a page.

Thanks for allowing me this trip down memory lane. I’ve had fun reading all of the comments and appreciate having this post to refer back to.

@Kathy: Thank you so much. I agree with your advice, especially about writing poetry. I love that form.

P.S. Love your homepage copy. Solid.

Nice that you like my homepage copy, Shane. Hopefully, you didn’t notice that links to all of the pages on my site are temporarily missing. lol Writing I can do. A techie I will never be.

Shane this FANTASTIC. The secret to your brilliant word-smithing on my guest blogging submissions has now been revealed. Thank you!

@Ash: My pleasure. Write on!

Shane, so good to see you on this blog. Your edits in the guestblogging forum have had such a huge impact on my writing. So I love this post.

Also, your tip about using the find functionality made me laugh.

I recently created a note in Evernote with a couple of words I could copy and paste into the find functionality to quickly spot points of improvement in my text.

I started with “it, here, there, really, very” and then went through your edits of my old guest posts to see what else I could add. While going through this article, I added a few new ones 🙂

it here / there really very be / begin / began start was going make made not n’t maybe might by want — wish, desire learn — discover find– discover best great is are on

@Robert: I have infected you with the editing virus. I shall pray for your sanity! 🙂

Excellent Shane! Cut down word use. Develop a clean blog. Trim the fat.

@Ryan: Glad you like it. Write on!

Shane.. The post you have created here is life-changing for me. As editing is something I neither understood or could accomplish without some assistance. I’m bookmarking this post. Honestly I deserve to read it a few more times in order to obtain complete understanding.. thanks so much.. keep smiling

@Shalonda: Comments like yours will indeed keep me smiling. 🙂 See? So glad you appreciated it. Write on!

This is great. I have pared it down into a checklist that people who have studied English grammar will understand:

Have you used… 1. The existential “there”? Do you need it? 2. The present continuous, or a phrasal verb? Could you replace it with a plain verb? 3. An adverb like “really” or “very”? Is the adjective you’re using poor? Can you find another one? 4. A negative description, eg. “not that good”? Can you put it positively? 5. Weak verbs with nouns? Can you use those nouns as verbs? Eg. Alcohol is the cause of hangovers – Alcohol causes hangovers. Can you… 6. Delete any unnecessary phrases, such as “the fact of the matter is” or “absolutely”? 7. Use a noun modifier instead of a noun + preposition + noun?

Are you… 8. Using commas to effectively clarify meaning?

@Emmeline: I like the checklist. Thanks for taking the time to share it here.

Nice post Shane! I am guilty of many of the writing sins you pointed out. I tend to overdo the there, here and it business. But I don’t agree with your punctuation point. Here’s one reason why http://goo.gl/GzGiXu Not to mention that you yourself generously use the commas (both Serial and Oxford)

P.S. You might want to edit this sentence. “You’ve expended a ton of effort on SEO, content marketing, networking, and social media promotion, all in the hopes that more people will notice your blog. So when they arrive, shouldn’t your next post blow their socks off too?”

@Mohita: I agree with you. If omitting a comma get’s poor Grandpa eaten, by all means don’t omit the comma, but our example doesn’t get anybody eaten. 🙂

Yes, we could have edited that sentence to read, “You’ve expended a ton of effort on SEO, content marketing, networking, and social media promotion, all [ in the hopes that [so] more people will notice your blog.”

I’ve spent my career speaking and writing, and I still need to take time with every thing I write to edit it down, remove the fluff and make it tight. When I started I didn’t like doing that very much, but now I view it as an indispensable part of the publishing process. Thank you for a great post, Shane.

@Stephen: You’re welcome, and thank you for commenting. I’d say, “Editing is where the good become great and the best get even better.” 🙂

Wow! Great stuff!

I am now a fan!

@Mark: Thank you kindly. I can never have too many bad-ass fans.

A perfect blog to learn all about English.

Thank you kindly.

Great article! Amazing tips! I will use them in future posts! Thanks!

My pleasure. Glad I could help.

Hi, Great Post!! Thanks for this valuable information and all the guidelines you provided. I really appreciate it.

You are most welcome. I’m sure I could learn a thing or three from the editors I saw on your site. 🙂

Thanks for some really specific, useful tips! I guess your writing style also depends on your audience, theme, language (!) etc., but I loved this both creative and serious way of showing how to keep it simple.

There is no doubt that this is a valuable post. I mean, “Awesome post!” 🙂

Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.

Among the 100s of ‘how to blog’ articles I’ve read, this is the first post that’s actually about editing. This is a sight for sore eyes – I’m a total perfectionist and am constantly editing, refining, trying to remove those useless filler words, to the point where I only publish a fraction of what I actually start to write! But you’re telling me that’s okay… thank you!

Great post! As a huge waffler this is going to help no end. I’ll still waffle though it’s my style and writing style is good right??!

Great blog , Nice piece of information.

I like your content (it’s right up my alley) and I love the presentation — how you’ve broken the advice down into useful chunks and how you used different fonts, type faces and colors to make the scroll attractive and easy to use. I’ll try copying that!

That was an insanely valuable blog post! My writing is already better, by reading it!

This was brilliant. Thank you. I just went over one of my emails and massively improved it by following your advice. I like to write but I was making quite a few of the mistakes you outlined above. I’m going to keep coming back to this page daily in order to learn how to make my blog a great read. I’m sure my readers will also appreciate that. Many thanks.

Hi Shane. I agree to all your points. I wrote many contents using grammar expletives. But now, i learned to write a content without these boring grammar expletives. Keep writing this type articles.

I want to improve my writing skills. Can you recommend any good books? I tend to be wordy rather than direct & concise. Thank you in advance for your feedback.

This post should help you: //smartblogger.com/essential-writing-books/

Another book on my personal list is The Little, Brown Handbook .

this blog sucks and so does your writing. you should hire me.

Okay, I’ll bite. 1. You just wrote two sentences without capitalizing the first words of each. Is that part of your non-suck method? 2. Have you been hacked? I ask this because clearly you can’t possibly think this is a good way to get hired. The whois data of your comment should help us determine this.

Brilliant article.

Am I the only one who read this and cried? Wait…I read this and cried….I have work to do!

@Margaux, I’m not sure of who else cried, but you made me laugh. 🙂 Write on!

Shane, serious question. Other than your own opinion, is there some verifiable data supporting the contention that the suggested edits will make one’s “writing more powerful”?

IMO, blanket editing rules are quite dangerous to writers, especially inexperienced ones. Judging by the comments on this page, I wonder how many of them will now write “No time was there” instead of “There was no time”.

@RK: Language follows rules; it doesn’t follow orders. So, although we may list these tips as rules, you can view them as suggestions.

Hi Shane. Again, you’ve provided great advice. (I already edited that sentence having committed two infractions). I guess that 1500 word post I wrote last night will become 700 quite easily now. Also, I suggest you check the G+1 button? I couldn’t scroll to the “post” button, your site kept jumping around. Probably why you have so few +1s. Kudos to your site AGAIN.

@Sandi, A year from today, who knows how excellent your writing will be! 😉

I feel like I’ve struck gold reading your post. Will save and get a print. No time to waste. Going back to my old posts:) thank you loads. You’re a genius! Happy New Year

@Hema, so glad you liked the post. Have a great year. Write on!

Hey Shane, thanks – one hell of a post. I read every word, including comments. Essential copy checklist – even better on the second read. Loving it!

@Des, my pleasure.

Hey Shane, I just can’t thank you enough for this post. This is way beyond the usual “stop making it too wordy.” This is really, really good advice. Thanks for sharing.

@Charlotte, Comments like yours put a smile on my face.

You’ve made my day.

I love this post. Thanks so much for sharing specific the examples.

My pleasure

tanx again amazing and wonderful

thank you for unveiling the secret behind the editing process of popular bloggers. Loved the way you elaborated with examples.

Rather going to take action, taking action straight away, if you know what I mean 😀

Write on, Vishnu!

Amazing article! English is not my native language, so these tips are especially useful to me as a blogger. Bookmarked immediately.

My pleasure, Tim.

Great tips, Shane! First of all Thanks for the article, I think I’ve also been getting the hang of it and eliminating some of these bad habits.

Write on, Muhammad!

Lovely post and great comments….seriously I generally avoid reading such articles but this one is too fantastic that I read whole article and even read all the comments…….. too catchy….. 🙂

@Shazma, thanks for those kind words. My pleasure to write it.

Amazing post, Arthur. There are so many rules to be considered as a writer, that it’s really hard to respect them all. But learning to produce amazing content for your readers, while optimizing for search engines at the same time, is a necessary process to master. I like your suggestions on how to improve the effectiveness of your writing, by simply editing some words (leaving the same meaning). Thanks for sharing your insights! 🙂

Always loved this one of yours. One of my favorite Smart Blogger posts.

Learning how to edit my work was, by far, my biggest breakthrough as a blogger. And this post has lots of great tips and ideas.

Off to tweet…

Thank you kindly, Kevin.

I am newbie. What book in details about this topic? I bought “They Say / I Say” book. I do not know how to use it, yet.

@Ahmad, my favorite book growing up was The Little, Brown Handbook. But, I think you’ll learn just as much from studying writers you love, too.

I have been digging through the trenches of the internet to find a blog post such as this one. Your words will be my Bible for the next few weeks as I go through an editing makeover for all of my blog posts.

@Cassidy, I’m glad that you found value in my words. You can see a few more posts I did here: https://smartblogger.com/author/shane/

@Hema, thank YOU for reading.

I am reading a blog on this website for the first time and I would like to tell you that the quality of the article is up to the mark it is very well written.

@Mark, thank you. I’m glad you liked it.

Usually, I never comment on blogs but your article convinced me to comment on it as is written so well. And telling someone how awesome they are is essential so that on my part I convince you to write more often.

@Vivek, thank you. I do plan on writing another post, eventually. 🙂

Thanks for sharing this relevant and good content with us. I read it all. By showing the editing mistakes you made us realize that what kind of mistake, we should avoid. As content matters a lot.

@Vidhan, my pleasure. Glad you liked the post.

I just like the helpful information you supply in your articles.I will bookmark your blog and take a look at again here regularly.I am somewhat certain I’ll be informed many new stuff proper right here! Best of luck for the following!

@Alisha, my pleasure.

Great tips! Thanks for sharing this amazing post.

Really enjoyed reading your blog.It is highly informative and builds great interest for the readers. For the people like us your blogs helps to get ideal information and knowledge. Thanks for providing such blogs.

Thank you for sharing this article. I’m a beginner in this field and it helped me a lot.

@Shyam, glad you liked it.

@Vijay, you’re welcome.

@Sharmila, that’s what I love to hear. Keep at it.

Write on! Shane

@Rakesh, I’m glad you liked it.

Very good article particularly for a beginner like me, will surely help me in better writing

Great stuff! I was surprised to see that you didn’t link to the 297 Flabby Words article in #4 (which is another great article).

Is it good or bad that I’m starting to see missed link opportunities in other people’s articles? 😀

@Josh, thank you for mentioning that. I’ll pass that up the chain.

I’d call it a GREAT thing you seeing missed links. You’re getting the editor-eye.

Thank you for sharing this useful article with us. I could offer 3 words: READ, WRITE, OBSERVE. This will help you write. I love to read your post. I appreciate you to continue your hard work. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

@vipul, thank you.

1, Read. Think about what you read. Talk about what you read. Listen to others talking about what they read. Read what they read. (This helps with content.)

2. Learn the basics of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage. Use them. Study them. Pay attention to how well you use them. Study how others use them (or not). (This helps with delivery.)

3. Get help on the parts you don’t do well, and consider the advice you receive. (This helps you combine join #1 and #2.)

@Rachna, I like what you wrote. Thanks.

The opening strike-through text was genius!

The post was excellent!

@Steph, thank you for mentioning that. The strike-through text was my favorite part.

The post is excellent!

Thank you for sharing this important information and it is very helpful for me as well as for my website.

Awesome share.!!!!!!!! I have found here lots of interesting information for my knowledge I need. all the details you provide to us, it was very helpful and useful, thanks for sharing this amazing post.

@Roslia, my pleasure. Glad you liked it.

Thanks a lot for publishing the informative blog. Really a great work is sharing.

@Robert, my pleasure. Write on!

Thank you for this, Shane. I have curated this post to share with my community on my main site. You are awesome! Connie Ragen Green

@Connie, that’s awesome to hear. I’d like to see a link to that.

Of course, Shane. It’s here at ConnieRagenGreen.com/im-not-an-english-teacher/. Your post here was an excellent one for me to reference in my post.

Thank you for this great list of actionable steps! Worth every minute of reading time!

@Jana, thank YOU.

I am very new to blogging your article gave me a confidence ow to start with and particularly how to edit it.

@Rohit, write on!

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and knowledge, I hope you will continue doing this type of content!

@papercheap, my pleasure. Glad you liked it.

This post is gold! Thank you so much. I need to go through all my articles now and edit them. They are “only” 140 🙂

Hey Shane, What a great read. One of the greatest blog for readers. It is so informative, I also shared it with some of the collegues. Thanks for sharing.

Fantastic post. As I have started my career in content writing, your tips have really proved helpful to me. Keep sharing your valuable knowledge with the users.

Excellent write-up Shane! Very helpful and clear examples. The more I write, the easier it is to look at my posts for editing and clarity. I’ll have this one bookmarked!

Awesome stuff Shane ! I will work on making my content better and better and sharing knowledge that will help others bigtime. I write on many subjects such as Cryptos, bio etc but I had other useful knowledge too, that I will share with my readers in a way better than before . Thanks for sharing.

Nice stuff, It’s actually hard to proofread than content writing.

Thanks to this post ill become a better writer! thanks a lot.

Thank you, Shane! I wish more copywriting courses touched on the editing part of the job (I was definitely pussyfooting around my verbs and adjectives when I first started out!).

Like many other copywriters, I realized editing makes up at least 50% of the total copywriting process after getting my first few gigs. It’s nice to see how others in the field do it. Your post was great learning material.

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Edit for clarity in Microsoft Word & Outlook

• Writing Tips

10 Strategies for Effective Proofreading and Editing

Document creation consumes a significant portion of every lawyer’s time regardless of practice area—up to 60% of lawyer time is spent drafting and polishing documents. Even after the words are written, proofreading and editing can drag on for hours—and sometimes errors still slip through the cracks.

Less time spent revising and refining documents translates to more time spent on high-value, substantive work. Here are 10 strategies to make proofreading and editing your legal documents more effective.

1. Let Your Document Sit.

It can be hard to step away from your work if you’re “in the zone.” But if you’ve been working on the same document for hours or days, it’ll become harder for you to notice mistakes. So if time permits, set aside your work to gain distance. Taking breaks could help get a fresh perspective.

If you’re on a tight deadline, even letting your document sit for 15 minutes will help. But if you have time to spare, it’s best to leave it overnight. When you come back to your work, you will see it with fresh eyes and renewed attention.

2. Look for a Quiet Place to Work

For editing, concentration is crucial. This means you must work in a quiet spot where you can avoid distractions. Background noise can make it hard to concentrate—especially if you’re working from home with kids or if a partner or colleague is having a conversation in the same room.

Find a quiet place away from your phone and without access to the internet. Disconnecting helps you resist the temptation to check for email and avoids distracting notifications that steal your focus.

3. Review Your Draft in Stages

Approach each proofreading and editing task separately. Start with structural editing by assessing the clarity of your message and overall flow. At this stage, you’re free to make significant changes by adding, moving, or deleting sections of text.

The next step is line editing, where you focus on revising each line to communicate your ideas clearly. Do it step by step: check for spelling, sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and so on. If you try to identify and fix too much at once, you risk losing focus, and your review will be less effective.

After line editing, you can proceed with copy editing. This step involves polishing your sentences to ensure correct grammar and syntax. The last stage is proofreading, where you carefully check for remaining errors like misspelled words or misused punctuation.

4. Read Your Text Aloud

Reading your paper out loud is a helpful step in the editing process. Reading aloud forces you to say each word and listen to how the words sound. It can help you notice missing words, run-on sentences, and awkward transitions. Hearing your text spoken helps you discern when something doesn't sound right—even if it’s grammatically correct—so you can make adjustments. You can try letting Microsoft Word read your text out loud to you. (The robotic voice will make your words feel unfamiliar, which will help you notice mistakes.)

Reading aloud is more effective than reading silently to yourself because when you read silently, you tend to skip over errors, fill in words, or make unconscious corrections.

5. Take Regular Breaks from Editing

It’s tough to maintain focus on detail-oriented work for more than 30 minutes at a time. Schedule breaks before your attention wanes. Staying too focused on your piece will make it harder for your brain to spot errors.

Stepping away can also help you be more analytical and less emotionally attached to your draft. That way, it’s easier to see what you can improve.

6. Track Your Editing Progress

You can save time and avoid re-evaluating text you’ve already reviewed by using a blank sheet of paper to cover any text that you haven’t reviewed yet. This keeps your eyes from wandering and your attention from shifting. Circle confirmed punctuation edits or place checkmarks next to paragraphs you’ve checked to see your progress and avoid accidentally repeating the work. Besides helping you track progress, interacting with the text helps keep you engaged as you edit.

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7. Change Your Text Formatting

It's hard to notice errors when you’re staring at your draft from a bright computer screen. When you’re looking at the same document, in the same font, in the same location, in the same context, your mind starts to merge those familiar experiences, which prevents you from catching mistakes. To see the errors, you need a new perspective. Change things up. If your review is focused on substance, try changing the size, spacing, color, or style of the text so it feels different.

8. Review Headings Separately

Rather than reading your document exactly as it appears on the page, try approaching it another way. Review headings and subheadings separately from the body text. By reviewing headings alone, you draw attention to inconsistencies and errors you might otherwise miss. Plus, reviewing headings and body text separately ensures you check both types of text. (Some of the most embarrassing errors in legal documents are hiding in plain sight in headings and captions.)

9. Try Backwards Editing

Backwards editing may sound strange but it’s a useful technique for seeing your documents with fresh eyes. Here’s how it works: Review one paragraph at a time in reverse order, starting with the last paragraph.

When you edit from the end of your document, you’re taking each section out of context. Editing out of order makes it easier to notice missing transitions or missing information. It also makes you focus on individual words and phrases rather than getting caught up in the flow of your draft. You might catch more errors this way because you’re editing for clarity instead of substance.

10. Find & Replace Repetitive Words

Don’t be afraid to hit CTRL + F to systematically search through your document for common errors and inconsistencies. Using the search function will automatically highlight sections of your text so you can efficiently spot repetitive words and phrases. It will also show you if you’ve written words and phrases inconsistently. Once you see the highlighting, you can choose to replace words to add variety, or replace inconsistent words and phrases with consistent ones—with just a few clicks.

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Using the right tools makes any job easier. That’s where WordRake comes in. Every word not conveying meaning detracts from every word trying to convey meaning, so when you remove the unnecessary words, you capture your reader more effectively.

In one click, WordRake analyzes your document or email, suggesting edits for clarity and brevity, right in Microsoft Word or Outlook. WordRake uses the familiar in-line, track-changes style, and you choose which edits to keep. With WordRake’s help, writing can be more persuasive and more effective, quickly.

WordRake is the ideal editing solution for legal professionals, business people, and anybody that writes as part of their career. Get your free 7-day trial today.

About the Author

Ivy B. Grey is the Chief Strategy & Growth Officer for WordRake. Prior to joining the team, she practiced bankruptcy law for ten years. In 2020, Ivy was recognized as an Influential Woman in Legal Tech by ILTA. She has also been recognized as a Fastcase 50 Honoree and included in the Women of Legal Tech list by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. Follow Ivy on Twitter @IvyBGrey  or connect with her on  LinkedIn .

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As a freelance writer trying to make money online , I’m an entire business entity in one. 

I am a salesperson, accounts/customer success manager, writer (operations), and financial controller all at once.

This means that it is my job to ensure that the customers are happy with my work. The importance of proofreading and good editing skills simply cannot be understated.

At the beginning of my writing career, I received my fair share of criticisms due to my sub-par work. To help you become a better writer, I’ve compiled my best editing tips to help you produce and submit better-quality work.

My top 10 Self-editing Tips

1) use grammar tools.

As an experienced freelance SEO content writer , I can confidently say that I’m pretty knowledgeable in the various writing and editing techniques .

That said, even the knowledge and skills of an experienced professional aren’t foolproof. 

Personally, I use various apps and tools designed for freelance writers . Some of which include grammar checking tools like Grammarly.

These are essential . Sometimes, it is difficult to catch your own mistakes. Having an extra pair of eyes can really go a long way in sparing you from mean criticisms from your clients.

2) Punctuation marks in written dialogue

I have to cover this one first, because it’s my pet peeve. One of them, anyway.

When your characters in your writing make a statement, it is an actual sentence, right? That means it deserves proper punctuation, like any other sentence.

Consider this dialogue. 

 “I like to write dialogue.”

Pretty basic.  The statement ends with a period. But who said it?

“I like to write dialogue,” I said.

Notice the comma. Since you are continuing the sentence by explaining who is speaking, there is no period until after I said. The comma comes before the quotation marks.

“I like to write dialogue,” I said. “It helps me understand my characters.”

Two separate sentences. A comma before the first set of quotation marks, a period after I said, then a period before the last set of quotation marks.

“I like to write dialogue,” I said, holding up one finger to grab his attention, “but I can’t stand seeing it written incorrectly.”

Notice: this changes because the sentence is split in the middle. It’s still, however, one sentence. 

You need a comma before the first set of quotation marks closes, a comma after I said, a comma before the last set of quotation marks opens, and a period before the final set of quotation marks closes.

3) Be mindful of misplaced modifiers

These can occasionally prompt giggles. Even so, you should avoid them.

First off, what’s a modifier? 

These are words or phrases that modify other words or phrases. “Only” is a typical modifier, and one that is easily misplaced. Other modifiers of which you should be careful are: almost, even, hardly, nearly, and often.

Neither one of these sentences is incorrect, but look at how the placement changes the meaning.

“I only speak English.”

This means: I don’t speak anything but English. No French, no Mandarin, no Polish.

“I speak only English.”

This means: The only thing I did with English was speak it. I didn’t write it or read it.

Here is a valid example of a misplaced modifier.

“Dressed all in blue, Susan paused to study the crowd of women.”

“Who was dressed in blue? Susan or the crowd of women?”

These can be hard to spot. Read them out loud to be sure!

4) Pay attention to syntax

What is Syntax, and what can it do for my writing?

There are zillions of words in the English language (that might possibly be an exaggeration, and the cool thing is how you can transform those words from boring old sentences into great ones just by using syntax. 

So really, it’s using words effectively. Playing around with syntax can help make plain sentences more interesting . Here are some examples:

“I wrote a book. I hope people will buy it.”  

Now that’s just boring 😴 Let’s connect the two phrases with the conjunction (“and”). In this case, I removed the “I” from the second phrase, meaning the second phrase can’t stand independently. When this happens, no comma is necessary.

“ I wrote a book and hope people will buy it.”

Now let’s use what’s called a “dependent marker”, so phrase #1 becomes a modifier for phrase #2. Let’s also pop that “I” back in, so the second phrase is just as independent as the first. 

“While I was writing my book, I hoped people would buy it.” 

Just to make things even more interesting, we can insert a “ nonessential phrase ” and surround it with commas, BUT you have to put the comma after the conjunction (“and” in this case). 

“I wrote a book, and, of course, I’m hoping people will buy it.”

Along the nonessential phrase thing,  you can also insert one that modifies the first phrase. In that case, the conjunction comes after the nonessential phrase.

“I wrote a book, which was amazing to me, and I hope people will buy it.”

If you want to make that nonessential phrase stick out, like it’s something that just popped into your head, use em dashes . The conjunction comes before the dashes in this case. 

“I wrote a book – which surprised the heck out of me – and I hope people will buy it.” 

If you use brackets instead, it will de-emphasize it. Don’t forget the comma after the close bracket.

“I wrote a book (which surprised the heck out of me), and I hope people will buy it.” 

Semi-colons can be used as well, but sparingly. For example, if we change the second phrase into something a little more interesting, we can add it to the first one.

“I wrote a book; I’m hoping when folks head into a bookstore, they’ll pick up a copy.” 

Use the semi-colon again, still using a more interesting second phrase, but add an adverb or adverbial phrase after the semi-colon, followed by a comma. 

“I wrote a book; naturally, I’m hoping when folks head into a bookstore, they’ll pick up a copy.” 

When you are writing, or when you’ve finished writing something, read what you’ve done out loud . Are your sentences all the same length and rhythm? Do they lack a little depth and variety? Anything gets dull if it’s all the same.

Look at syntax. Take a sentence or two and play. Create something beautiful out of something plain.

4) Start with a great hook

It doesn’t matter what you’re writing. 

If you don’t hook your reader right off the start, nobody’s going to read what you’ve written. Well, maybe your mom, or your spouse, or someone you pay … but why torture them? Give them a great opening line.

The opening sentence is a multi-tasker . It sets the tone for your writing, engages the reader, and hints at something yet to be revealed. You want to have the reader lean in, frown at the words, nod, and say something like, “Wow. This is gonna be good.”

If coming up with this first line is giving you such a hard time you can’t seem to work past it and get to your second line, then skip it. Sometimes a writer will come up with the perfect first line only after they’ve finished writing the last line! 

Here are a few classics. 

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

 “‘To be born again,’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die.'”

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

“I’d never given much thought to how I would die – though I’d never had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined I like this.”

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

5) Get rid of words you don’t need

These lists a few of the top “most used and unnecessary” words and phrases. 

Do a search for them when you’re done with your draft and cut or alter when you can. 

Too many words make your reader yawn. Sometimes the words can just be deleted, sometimes, the whole sentence needs to be rearranged. 

And sometimes the words are perfect, and you should just let them be. Read these sentences aloud, first of all using the unnecessary word, then trying it without. Smoother?

That … “She told me that it would be possible”

There was … “She told me there was no way it could be done.” (makes it a passive sentence) “She told me it couldn’t be done.” (active)

Just … “I just wanted to do it.”

Really … “I was really glad she’d said that.” or use a better word: “I was thrilled she’d said that.”

Was  … “The problem was being discussed by management.” (passive) “Management  discussed the problem.” (active, and usually preferred)

Quite … “Everything about the problem was quite difficult.”

Very … “Everything about the problem was very difficult.”

6) Don’t combine “And” with “Then”.

Choose one or the other.

“She buttoned up her coat and then reached for an umbrella.”

“She buttoned up her coat and reached for an umbrella.” 

This is weak because it suggests she’s doing it simultaneously. Notice the comma disappears because the second phrase is dependent.

“She buttoned up her coat and then reached for an umbrella.” You can see her doing it now, can’t you?

7) Avoid listing too many activities in a sequence

“She opened her tiny suitcase and stared fearfully at the pile of clothes she’d have to squeeze in. Besides the mandatory socks and underwear, she’d have to make room for ten shirts and four pairs of pants. Those were obvious. She’d need a skirt for the party, and that meant she’d have to fit in not only her two regular pairs of shoes but a fancy pair as well. With resignation, she puffed through her lips, sounding somewhat like a horse. She’d have to make herself presentable, so she’d need all her hair products as well as make-up. And crowning it all, she’d have to stuff in her big, fat, down winter jacket. How was she going to manage all that?”

See my point? 😩

8) Avoid using simple verbs too often

For example, take a look at this sentence.

“He felt the night descending”

There’s nothing wrong with this sentence. But using this simple structure too often is way too easy and way too boring. 

Instead of using simple verbs, use words that put him right out there and experience it with him.

9) Explore all senses

It doesn’t all have to be in one sentence because that can be overwhelming, but you can try.

Check out this first example 

“Jenny stepped across the room and smelled Clara baking a birthday cake.”

It’s simple but is also clean and dull.

Now check out the second example. 

“The worn grey planks creaked as Jenny’s bare feet shuffled across the floor, and she shivered at the chilling evidence that it was mid-January. She should have taken the time to search out her cracked old moccasins, hidden somewhere in the dust beneath her bed. From under the  kitchen, a door seeped an almost sickly sweet aroma of vanilla, and she realized Clara had remembered her birthday. The clanging of pots and Clara’s muttered curses confirmed it.”

This version takes in all—or most of—the senses, and brings your reader into that room with your character.

10) Step away from your work for a bit

This is perhaps one of the most underrated editing tips.

Step away from you work for a bit and take a breather. 

Once you are well rested, come back and focus on picking out your mistakes.

Are you now clearer on how to make a good edit ?

And there you have it! 

These are the top editing tips  that I personally use in my writing.

With these in your arsenal, I’m confident that you can produce great pieces of writing work 😊

More resources

How to write an awesome & engaging blog post for a business, top 21 finance & investment blogs in singapore, 10 reasons why content writing is important for business & marketing.

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Last updated on May 05, 2023

Types of Editing: An Inside Look at What Editors Do

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Martin Cavannagh

Head of Content at Reedsy, Martin has spent over eight years helping writers turn their ambitions into reality. As a voice in the indie publishing space, he has written for a number of outlets and spoken at conferences, including the 2024 Writers Summit at the London Book Fair.

Literary editors are a writer's best friend — they have the skills, experience, and knowledge to take your manuscript to the next level. However, not all editors do the same job and it's important to understand what type of editing your project needs at any given stage.

In this guide, we’ll take you through the different types of editing and offer insights from Reedsy's deep roster of expert manuscript editors . 

5 common types of editing in publishing:

1. Editorial assessment

2. developmental editing, 3. copy editing, 4. proofreading, 5. fact-checking.

An editorial assessment is often the first piece of professional help a manuscript will receive. Your editor will offer you some broad, insightful feedback on major strengths and weaknesses in your plot, characters, or structure.

“In an editorial assessment, the author wouldn’t receive comments and example rewrites in the manuscript,” says genre fiction editor Leah Brown . “Instead, they would receive a letter that focuses on the broad strokes. An editorial assessment is best for an author who is early in the process and whose manuscript may be messier.”

Seeking out an editorial assessment early on will make the job of a developmental and copy edit later down the line much easier. Similarly, they can help you determine whether your work is ready for querying before you contact any literary agents. 

What kind of editing does your book need?

Takes one minute!

Developmental editing — also called content or substantive editing — involves an editor providing detailed feedback on “big-picture” issues. They’ll refine your ideas, shape your narrative, and help you fix any major plot or character inconsistencies to tell you if any elements of your story just don’t work. It’s similar to an editorial assessment but contains much more detail.

“For a developmental edit, I look at some of the larger questions,” says editor Mary-Theresa Hussey . “Why are the characters behaving as they do? What are their motivations? Do these scenes add to the overall story? What is your underlying theme, and how does it change?” 

Your editor will return an annotated manuscript, a marked-up version of the original manuscript with specific suggestions for each issue, and an editorial report. This is essentially a summary of the raw feedback left on the manuscript. 

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Copy editing is the next step after you're certain you've solved your book's big-picture issues. An editor will read your work on the lookout for anything that makes it less readable, like word repetition or character inconsistencies. This type is also known as mechanical or line editing, depending on its particular application.

“A copy editor’s job is to bring the author’s completed manuscript to a more professional level ,” says editor Chersti Nieveen . “A copy edit helps create the most readable version of your book, improving clarity, coherency, consistency, and correctness. The goal is to bridge any remaining gaps between the author’s intent and the reader’s understanding.”

What elements do copy editors consider?

A copy editor examines and corrects the following elements in your work:

• Capitalization
• Word usage and repetition
• Dialogue tags
• Usage of numbers or numerals
• POV/tense (to fix any unintentional shifts)
• Descriptive inconsistencies (character descriptions, locations, blocking, etc.)

It’d be pretty distracting to your reader if you constantly misplace the comma next to quotemarks  or misspell the word “restaurant.” Copy editing ensures that errors like these don’t happen, so your writing is as strong as possible, and your reader remains 100% focused on the story. They can also help make sure that you’re using the right terminology and that you’re using inclusive language in your writing.

Is line editing the same as copy editing? 

People often use "line editing" and "copy editing" interchangeably — but they’re not exactly the same thing. To clarify: line editing focuses specifically on the content and flow of your prose . It’s also called 'stylistic editing' since it concentrates on style rather than mechanics.

In other words, it still falls under the umbrella of copy editing but is more precise. While a full copy edit looks at all of the elements listed in the bullets above, a line edit would only consider word usage, POV/tense, and descriptive inconsistencies and provide more detailed suggestions on strengthening the prose.

If you feel incredibly confident about the mechanics of your prose but less so about its flow and style, you might request that your copy editor focus their energy on line editing alone. After all, a proofreader can always catch any minor errors that slip through the cracks.

And speaking of proofreaders...

Proofreading is the last major stage of the editing process. Proofreaders are eagle-eyed inspectors who ensure no spelling or grammar errors make it to the final version of your work . 

Back in the day, an impression of a metal plate would be created as “proof” of a fully formatted book . But before that happened, it would be triple-checked by the proofreader, who made sure the publisher didn’t churn out thousands of copies of a novel called A Tale of Tow Cities .

Even with modern digital typesetting, proofreaders still often work from physical proofs, often using a language of their own , as they go. They’ll watch out for:

• Inconsistencies in spelling and style;
• Inconsistencies in layout and typography;
• Confusing or awkward page and word breaks;
• Incorrect captioning on any illustrations and page numbers in the contents.

Although most issues will be resolved by this stage, proofreaders still scrutinize the text for anything previous edits might have missed. Hopefully, they don’t find much, but better safe than sorry!

The style sheet

When working with a proofreader, you should provide them with a style sheet that notifies them of any unusual spellings or styles in your manuscript — for example, if you’ve written a second-world novel and have invented some words. Otherwise, they’ll read your manuscript “blind,” which is still pretty effective but may not incorporate every little detail of your work.

Once they’re done, your proofreader will return a marked-up document for you to revise one final time. After making those changes, you should be ready to send your manuscript into production, either by working with a typesetter or using a free tool like Reedsy Studio  to export your ebook.

No matter how thoroughly you research your book, it can still end up with informational inconsistencies — and that's a fact (pun fully intended). Developmental and copy editors can help with this, but at the end of the day, it’s not their responsibility to fact-check.

If you have a lot of niche information in your book, and especially if it’s a topic you’ve never written on before — you might consider getting a designated fact-checker to comb through it. They’ll note all the factual references in your book, then carefully confirm them via external sources; if they find any inaccuracies, they’ll alert you immediately. 

This type of editing is particularly crucial if you’re writing nonfiction (and dedicated nonfiction editors are often experienced fact-checkers too ). But getting a trained eye on your manuscript can also be very helpful for historical fiction and hard sci-fi works.

Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your book is the same — a quick self-edit won’t be enough if you want to be a successful author (whatever that means to you). An outside perspective from a professional editor, will help you lay the foundation the right way. With that in mind, you’re ready to go forth and conquer the world — the world of editing!

To learn how to find an editor to work on your book, proceed to the next post in this series.

3 responses

Emily Bradley says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

A good editor would have caught the fact that that those are lilac blossoms over the book, not lavender. :)

29/06/2019 – 15:50

Are these out of order? Would you get copy-editing before line editing?

↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:

01/07/2019 – 09:04

In terms of the order in which you'd get them — you're right that you'd look at line editing before a strict copy-edit, though realistically a copyeditor in publishing would be doing both, in a way. We'll have a look at swapping these around just for clarity. Thanks, Tom!

Comments are currently closed.

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Mastering the art of essay writing – a comprehensive guide.

Essay writing is a fundamental skill that every student needs to master. Whether you’re in high school, college, or beyond, the ability to write a strong, coherent essay is essential for academic success. However, many students find the process of writing an essay daunting and overwhelming.

This comprehensive guide is here to help you navigate the intricate world of essay writing. From understanding the basics of essay structure to mastering the art of crafting a compelling thesis statement, we’ve got you covered. By the end of this guide, you’ll have the tools and knowledge you need to write an outstanding essay that will impress your teachers and classmates alike.

So, grab your pen and paper (or fire up your laptop) and let’s dive into the ultimate guide to writing an essay. Follow our tips and tricks, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a skilled and confident essay writer!

The Art of Essay Writing: A Comprehensive Guide

Essay writing is a skill that requires practice, patience, and attention to detail. Whether you’re a student working on an assignment or a professional writing for publication, mastering the art of essay writing can help you communicate your ideas effectively and persuasively.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key elements of a successful essay, including how to choose a topic, structure your essay, and craft a compelling thesis statement. We’ll also discuss the importance of research, editing, and proofreading, and provide tips for improving your writing style and grammar.

By following the advice in this guide, you can become a more confident and skilled essay writer, capable of producing high-quality, engaging essays that will impress your readers and achieve your goals.

Understanding the Essay Structure

When it comes to writing an essay, understanding the structure is key to producing a cohesive and well-organized piece of writing. An essay typically consists of three main parts: an introduction, the body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Introduction: The introduction is where you introduce your topic and provide some background information. It should also include your thesis statement, which is the main idea or argument that you will be discussing in the essay.

Body paragraphs: The body of the essay is where you present your supporting evidence and arguments. Each paragraph should focus on a separate point and include evidence to back up your claims. Remember to use transition words to link your ideas together cohesively.

Conclusion: The conclusion is where you wrap up your essay by summarizing your main points and restating your thesis. It is also a good place to make any final thoughts or reflections on the topic.

Understanding the structure of an essay will help you write more effectively and communicate your ideas clearly to your readers.

Choosing the Right Topic for Your Essay

One of the most crucial steps in writing a successful essay is selecting the right topic. The topic you choose will determine the direction and focus of your writing, so it’s important to choose wisely. Here are some tips to help you select the perfect topic for your essay:

By following these tips and considering your interests, audience, and research, you can choose a topic that will inspire you to write an engaging and compelling essay.

Research and Gathering Information

When writing an essay, conducting thorough research and gathering relevant information is crucial. Here are some tips to help you with your research:

Crafting a Compelling Thesis Statement

When writing an essay, one of the most crucial elements is the thesis statement. This statement serves as the main point of your essay, summarizing the argument or position you will be taking. Crafting a compelling thesis statement is essential for a strong and cohesive essay. Here are some tips to help you create an effective thesis statement:

• Be specific: Your thesis statement should clearly state the main idea of your essay. Avoid vague or general statements.
• Make it arguable: A strong thesis statement is debatable and presents a clear position that can be supported with evidence.
• Avoid clichés: Stay away from overused phrases or clichés in your thesis statement. Instead, strive for originality and clarity.
• Keep it concise: Your thesis statement should be concise and to the point. Avoid unnecessary words or phrases.
• Take a stand: Your thesis statement should express a clear stance on the topic. Don’t be afraid to assert your position.

By following these guidelines, you can craft a compelling thesis statement that sets the tone for your essay and guides your reader through your argument.

Writing the Body of Your Essay

Once you have your introduction in place, it’s time to dive into the body of your essay. The body paragraphs are where you will present your main arguments or points to support your thesis statement.

Here are some tips for writing the body of your essay:

• Stick to One Main Idea: Each paragraph should focus on one main idea or argument. This will help keep your essay organized and easy to follow.
• Use Topic Sentences: Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea of the paragraph.
• Provide Evidence: Support your main points with evidence such as facts, statistics, examples, or quotes from experts.
• Explain Your Points: Don’t just state your points; also explain how they support your thesis and why they are important.
• Use Transition Words: Use transition words and phrases to connect your ideas and create a smooth flow between paragraphs.

Remember to refer back to your thesis statement and make sure that each paragraph contributes to your overall argument. The body of your essay is where you can really showcase your critical thinking and analytical skills, so take the time to craft well-developed and coherent paragraphs.

Perfecting Your Essay with Editing and Proofreading

Editing and proofreading are essential steps in the essay writing process to ensure your work is polished and error-free. Here are some tips to help you perfect your essay:

• Take a Break: After writing your essay, take a break before starting the editing process. This will help you look at your work with fresh eyes.
• Focus on Structure: Check the overall structure of your essay, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Make sure your ideas flow logically and cohesively.
• Check for Clarity: Ensure that your arguments are clear and easy to follow. Eliminate any jargon or confusing language that might obscure your message.
• Grammar and Punctuation: Review your essay for grammar and punctuation errors. Pay attention to subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, and proper punctuation usage.
• Use a Spell Checker: Run a spell check on your essay to catch any spelling mistakes. However, don’t rely solely on spell checkers as they may miss certain errors.
• Read Aloud: Read your essay aloud to yourself or have someone else read it to you. This can help you identify awkward phrasing or unclear sentences.
• Get Feedback: Consider getting feedback from a peer, teacher, or writing tutor. They can offer valuable insights and suggestions for improving your essay.

By following these editing and proofreading tips, you can ensure that your essay is well-crafted, organized, and free of errors, helping you make a strong impression on your readers.

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The Writer’s Guide to Self-Editing: 7 Essential Tips

by Madison Zadravec · Published August 14, 2024 · Updated August 14, 2024

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels .

Self-editing is an art that can transform your writing from good to great. By learning to effectively revise and refine your work, you’ll not only enhance clarity and impact but also develop a stronger, more confident writing voice.

Explore these seven self-editing tips to hone your skills and elevate your writing.

1. Chart Your Course

Lost in a sea of your own words? Start by creating a clear roadmap or outline to guide your work. Distill your content down to its essential points so that your main ideas shine through from the beginning.

Revisit the outline to check that your piece aligns with the initial plan. If it doesn’t, refocus key ideas to ensure your writing stays on track and delivers a clear, compelling message from start to finish.

2. Draw Readers In

The title or headline is your story’s first impression—make it count. Start by drafting a working title that reflects your key message. As you write, let this headline guide you.

Reassess the title after you’ve finished the piece, tweaking it to perfectly capture the tone and essence of your content. A strong headline not only grabs attention but also sets the right expectations for the reader.

3. Lead with Impact

Your lead, or opening paragraph, is your story’s handshake. It should be firm, engaging and free of fluff. Avoid adding unnecessary anecdotes or details that do not serve your main point.

After writing, revisit your lead to ensure it’s as strong and engaging as possible—if it doesn’t pull readers in, revise it until it does. A well-crafted lead sets the tone for the rest of your piece.

4. Confirm the Details

Inaccuracies can sink your credibility and lead to post-publishing edits. Triple-check every fact, figure, date, acronym and name in your piece.

Rely on trustworthy sources and watch out for autocorrect errors that can slip by unnoticed. Taking the time to verify your information is a small but crucial investment that pays off in credibility and trustworthiness.

5. Keep It Simple

Break down your thoughts into clear, digestible pieces. Simplicity isn’t about dumbing down; it’s about smart communication.

Keep in mind that complex sentences are like hurdles — too many, and your readers will trip. Ask yourself if your sentences have enough variation in length. Consider separating long sentences to improve readability.

If your piece is lengthy but still not hitting the mark, weed out all irrelevant details. Include only those that add clarity, perspective or other value to your reader.

6. Read It, Don’t Just Write It

Reading aloud might feel awkward, but it’s a surefire way to catch clunky sentences and awkward phrasing. If you find yourself stumbling over a sentence, it likely needs revision.

For a fresh perspective, try reading aloud in a different tone. Use a deep, gruff voice or sing the words in a melody. Hearing the text differently may help you catch details that were overlooked when reading silently.

7. Know Your Audience, Speak Their Language

Writing isn’t one-size-fits-all. Evaluate your audience and their familiarity with the topic. Have you given readers the tools to understand your story?

Tailor your content to your audience’s level of understanding and interests. Avoid jargon unless you’re sure readers will understand it. You may need to define uncommon terminology or use simpler language.

Most importantly, ensure your writing is inclusive of readers’ diverse perspectives. Your writing should resonate with your audience, making them feel seen and understood. This not only broadens your appeal but also demonstrates respect for all audiences.

The Bottom Line:

Editing isn’t just about fixing errors; it’s about refining your voice and making sure your message hits home. Self-editing is where your writing truly comes to life.

Apply these tips to sharpen your focus, improve clarity and make your writing more impactful. Take the time to edit carefully — it’s well worth the effort.

Subscribe to Beyond Bylines to get media trends, journalist interviews, blogger profiles, and more sent right to your inbox.

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Madison Zadravec

Madison Zadravec is a Customer Content Specialist and Industry Ambassador for PR Newswire. Both roles highlight Madison’s keen eye for detail and passion for brand storytelling. When not immersed in the latest headlines, Madison can be found hiking with her dog, solving a crossword puzzle, or baking a sweet treat.

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How to edit your writing: tips to perfect your journal article 

Oxford Academic: Journals

We publish over 500 high-quality journals, with two-thirds in partnership with learned societies and prestigious institutions. Our diverse journal offerings ensure that your research finds a home alongside award-winning content, reaching a global audience and maximizing impact. Find out more.

• By Megan Taphouse and Rose Wolfe-Emery
• August 9 th 2024

Editing plays a significant role in improving the quality of your journal article and builds the bridge between the first draft and a submission-ready manuscript.

You might picture grammatical corrections when you think of editing, but this process also improves the clarity, coherence, and accuracy of your writing. Editing allows authors to critique their ideas, refine their arguments, and address the weaker aspects of their manuscript. In this blog post, we share tips and advice from on how to edit your journal article and what to consider when doing so. 

Why bother? The power of editing

“Most of the time, our first draft is for ourselves”, says A. Foster . “We write what we have been thinking about most, which means the article reflects our questions, our knowledge, and our interests. A round or two of editing and refining before submission to the journal is valuable.”

H. Broman advises that editing can help your article be accepted and save time in the long run. “Editing does yourself a favour by minimizing distractions, annoyances, or cosmetic points that a reviewer can criticize. Why give reviewers things to criticize when you can eliminate them by submitting a carefully prepared manuscript?”

Editing, copyediting, or proofreading? Understanding the difference

Editing, copyediting, and proofreading are distinct stages in preparing written content. Editing improves the overall content, structure, and clarity, ensuring the writing communicates its message effectively. Copyediting is often provided by most journals and focuses on grammar, punctuation, spelling, and consistency, correcting errors and adhering to a style guide. Proofreading is the final review, checking for minor errors, typos, and formatting issues to ensure the text is polished and error-free before publication. 

It’s important to note the difference specifically between editing and proofreading . An author should edit a journal article early on to improve content and clarity. Proofreading should be done at the final stage to catch minor errors and ensure the manuscript is polished before submission. 

Editing tools and services

Consider having your manuscript professionally edited before submission, especially if English is not your first language. This step, while optional, can help ensure your paper’s content is clearly understood by editors and reviewers. A newer development, AI tools for language editing are becoming more widespread—our survey of more than 2,000 researchers showed that 38% had used AI to help with editing. Popular tools like Microsoft Word Editor and Turnitin Revision Assistant can help authors enhance the readability and quality of their manuscripts before submission. However, as the landscape around AI and its technical capabilities continues to evolve, many publishers are introducing guidelines and restrictions about the use of AI tools . Check your chosen publisher’s or journal’s policy before proceeding.

Refining your writing: Questions to ask yourself

Is your writing clear and easy to understand?  

Clarity is essential, to make sure that you are communicating your ideas effectively. E. Franco’s advice is to “wait 2-3 days and then reread your draft. You will be surprised to see how many passages in your great paper are too complicated and inscrutable even for you. And you wrote it!”

Do you repeat yourself?

Eliminate redundancy. It detracts from your point and dilutes the impact of your argument. It can be tempting to use wordy language to seem more professional or to lengthen your papers, but this can obscure messages and undermine objectivity.  

Is your writing style consistent? 

Maintaining a uniform style and format in your journal article enhances its presentation. Consistency in writing style and tone improves narrative understanding and ensures clear communication of your research. While style is crucial, striking a balance is key to keeping readers engaged without compromising accuracy. 

Could your argument be made more persuasive or could your key findings be emphasised?  

Strengthening your argument is crucial, as this can improve the persuasiveness of the article and enhances its credibility. 

Are your references and citations comprehensive and accurate? 

Have you proofread your article carefully? 

Attention to grammar, punctuation, and spelling reflects a commitment to excellence and professionalism. Whilst perfect written English is often not expected, typos throughout the manuscript are not a good reflection on you.

Is your data accurate and properly formatted? 

Verify the accuracy of all data and information presented in your article. If you have supplementary materials, such as datasets or additional figures, make sure these are organised as required by the journal. 

Does your chosen journal have formatting requirements?

Is your article the correct length?  

“Do not submit an article which is already at or above the word limit for articles in the journal. The review process rarely asks for cuts; usually, you will be asked to clarify or add material. If you are at the maximum word count in the initial submission, you then must cut something during the revision process.” – A. Foster 

Do you need a second opinion? 

It can be helpful to get feedback from a peer who isn’t a co-author. A peer represents a reader , and they can provide a different perspective as someone who is removed from the project. Accepting feedback can be difficult , but ultimately it can help to strengthen your writing. 

Do your edits all make sense together? 

With all your careful edits it can be easy to lose sight of the overall picture. Seth J. Schwartz recommends revisiting your planned outline to ensure that your additions, modifications, or deletions have not unintentionally changed your structure. 

Editing is an essential part of transforming your initial draft into a polished, submission-ready manuscript. By focusing on clarity, coherence, and accuracy, authors can enhance their arguments and ensure their research is effectively communicated.

Now it is time to review the journal and publisher’s submission guidelines thoroughly to ensure that your article adheres to their formatting requirements. See our list of essential checks for preparing your manuscript . 

Featured image by Suzy Hazelwood via Pexels . Public domain.

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Want to write a college essay that sets you apart? Three tips to give you a head start

1. Keep it real. It’s normal to want to make a good impression on the school of your choice, but it’s also important to show who you really are. So just be yourself! Compelling stories might not be perfectly linear or have a happy ending, and that’s OK. It’s best to be authentic instead of telling schools what you think they want to hear.

2. Be reflective . Think about how you’ve changed during high school. How have you grown and improved? What makes you feel ready for college, and how do you hope to contribute to the campus community and society at large?

3. Look to the future. Consider your reasons for attending college. What do you hope to gain from your education? What about college excites you the most, and what would you like to do after you graduate? Answering these questions will not only give colleges insight into the kind of student you’ll be, but it will also give you the personal insight you’ll need to choose the school that’s right for you.

Have questions about college prep? We're here to help.

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As a student or prospective student at CU Boulder, you have a right to certain information pertaining to financial aid programs, the Clery Act, crime and safety, graduation rates, athletics and other general information such as the costs associated with attending CU Boulder. To view this information visit  colorado.edu/your-right-know .

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What I learned about writing from watching the Olympic games

Whether you’re writing or completing moves that defy the limitations of the human body, you must stick the landing — without making a splash.

If you have watched Olympic sports, as I have, you probably think that you know enough now to become a judge.

You know if a diver makes a big splash, points will be deducted. You know that if a gymnast fails to “stick the landing” and takes a big hop, yes, points will be deducted. It doesn’t matter if those athletes complete twists and turns and spins that defy the limitations of human strength and flexibility, you need a great ending to get a great score.

The same applies to writing.

The ending of my report or story matters a lot, not always a value expressed by practitioners who traditionally wrote articles that could easily be cut from the bottom.

That said, one strategy for finding a good ending was inspired by criticism from my brother Vincent. He argued that many of my endings were overblown like classical music concertos, designed to prove what a magnificent writer I had become.

He was right. Editors warn writers not to bury the lead. But you can bury an ending, too. So now I just cover the last paragraph and ask myself, “What if my story ended here?” I keep moving up from the bottom until the natural ending raises its hand for recognition.

Over time, I have collected on my workbench a variety of tools writers have used to stick the landing — without making a splash:

• Close the circle: A good ending can remind readers of the beginning by returning to an important place or reintroducing a key character.
• The tie-back: The ending echoes some odd or offbeat element — it can be a word or a phrase — introduced earlier in the story.
• The time frame: Create a tick-tock structure with time advancing relentlessly. To end the story, you decide what should happen last.
• The space frame: Rather than time, focus on place or geography. The hurricane reporter moves readers from location to location, revealing the terrible damage from the storm. To end, you select the final destination.
• The payoff: This does not require a happy ending, but a satisfying one, a reward for a journey concluded, a secret revealed, a mystery solved, a lost cat (named Voodoo) rescued from the rubble.
• The epilogue: The story ends, but life goes on. How many times have you wondered, after the house lights come back on, what happened next to the characters in a movie? Readers care about characters in stories. An epilogue helps satisfy their curiosity.
• Problem and solution: This common structure suggests its own ending. Form the problem at the top and then offer readers possible solutions and resolutions.
• The apt quote: Often overused, this technique remains a sturdy tool for ending stories. Some characters just speak in endings, capturing in their own words a neat summary or distillation of what has come before. In most cases, you can write it better than the source can say it. But not always.
• Look to the future: Most stories are about things that have already happened. But what do people say will happen next? What is the likely consequence of this decision or those events?
• Celebrate the kicker! The kicker is an old-time journalism word that describes a word, phrase, sentence or detail that provides a clever, and at times, surprising end to a story. I have not been able to find an origin for the term. The best guess came from the late, great editor Steve Lovelady , who argued that it was as old as vaudeville and burlesque when dancers kicked their way offstage at the end of a routine.

Here’s more advice that I found in the dusty pages of my book “Help! For Writers”:

• Collect good endings from books, music and movies. (From Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”: “He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.”)
• Try writing your endings first. (J.K. Rowling knew how her seven-book Harry Potter series would end before she wrote the first words of book one.)
• Think about an ending from the beginning of the process. (Reporters often encounter an anecdote or quote that they know right away they will use in a story. They can also scribble in their notebook: “possible ending.”)
• Leave readers with information they can use now. (“If you are asked to evacuate during the storm, remember to bring these things with you.”)
• Play off a classic ending: riding into the sunset, freeze-frame, that chaste kiss at the end of a Hallmark Christmas movie.

OK, so I hit my 750-word limit and now face the pressure of a good ending so my editor will not deduct points from my score.

In the spirit of the Paris Olympics, I might end with, “Bon soir!”

Or repeat these important lessons: On your vault, do your best to stick the landing. On your dive, try to enter the water vertically, so you don’t make a splash. Oh, and if you are trying to be the fastest runner in the world, be sure to lean your torso across the finish line.

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How to Become an Editor

July 20, 2024

Have you ever wondered how the writing process of full-length novels occurs? How does a single writer proofread and edit 70,000-120,000 words? The truth is—they don’t! This is not to say that writers don’t reread or evaluate their work, but most of the editing process involves teamwork. Writers will create all written text, but editors often proofread and correct this work. Editors are highly trained in proofreading for grammar, spelling, and writing style. They have an eye for organization, reading comprehension, and tact. It is tough to edit and proofread one’s writing; editors use fresh eyes and in-depth knowledge to help mold the polished writing we see in novels, articles, and press releases. We even know the work of editors on website copy and some social media posts! If you believe an editing career may be perfect for you, there are a few steps to take to ensure your job goes far.

• Types of Editing Careers

No matter what type of editing career, your role will always consist of proofreading text for errors, consistency, and style. However, the kind of text and writing style you edit for different roles will vary. Academia editors work with research and academic writing. News editors will proofread journalistic work for errors and style choices. Entertainment editors combine their writing technical expertise with a love for the arts to create high-quality written material. Editors can also work with novels, children’s books, website copy, social media, business or legal documents, or wherever accurate and high-quality text is needed.

• Editing and Writing Styles

The first step to starting a rewarding career in editing is to choose the scope you’d like to shoot for. However, you may have to take on some editing roles that don’t align with your dream role to establish a resume. Educating yourself on all writing and editing styles is also helpful for kickstarting a career path. Writing styles include academic ones such as MLA, APA, journalistic, formal, informal, blog writing, novel writing, nonfictional writing, children’s writing, and more. Editing styles include copyediting (basic edits such as grammar and spelling), developmental editing (editing for flow and structure), and line editing (paragraph, line, or sentence editing). Understanding different types of editing and how to complete them will help you hone your craft and determine what scope of the editing industry you’d like to step foot in.

• Complete Education

While a strong editing portfolio can help you land a job, college degrees focusing on writing, editing, or journalism can give you an advantage as a job applicant. These classes also allow you to practice, receive feedback, and study editing. If you do not want to complete a full degree, there are also editing courses, classes, and programs that require less time and financial commitments. Certificates on a resume may give you a slight advantage on an application.

• Professional Editing Societies and Groups

A professional society is a group of career professionals in specific fields that provides industry trends, job opportunities, and resources for career advancement. The editing field has many professional societies, such as the American Copy Editors or Editorial Freelancers Association. By joining a professional editing society, you can access these career resources and stay updated on editing career trends that may give you an advantage in the field.

• Perfect Your Resume

A resume for any job industry should be informative, concise, and error-free. However, if a resume has typos or wording issues for an editing position, it’s safe to say that may cost you the job! Be sure your resume is updated , correct, and free of errors. Include any education, courses, certifications, or societies you are a part of to show your dedication to the field.

• Editing Portfolios

A portfolio serves as an example of your work. Artists have examples of different art styles and mediums in their portfolios. Writers showcase different writing genres, styles, and tones. Editor portfolios should feature texts showcasing their style, genre, and convention editing expertise. Your portfolio can give recruiters a sample of how your work looks in its final stages and what kind of writing you excel at editing.

• Consider Freelance Work

Freelance work has many benefits, especially for those starting a career; it lets you put experience and work history on a resume. It also gives you an idea of a typical editing job without committing to a long-term role. Additionally, freelance work allows you to essentially ‘be your own boss’ regarding scheduling and client choice. Perusing online platforms or recruiters looking for freelance editors for hire is a great start.

• Start Networking

Networking involves connecting with other professionals in your field. Networking circulates your name within your field, establishes colleagues, and may even provide exclusive job opportunities. Professional social media such as LinkedIn is often a simple and easy way to start networking in editing.

• Online Job Hunting

Once you’ve secured experience, education, and knowledge of the editing industry, it’s time to start hunting for the perfect career. While submitting your resume to businesses needing editors in person can be beneficial, many editors work remotely or hybridly online. Tailor your portfolio, resume, and cover letter for different recruiters or firms to boost your success in online job applications. Some recruiters filter resumes for specific keywords, so organically include industry-relevant terms in your cover letter, portfolio, and resume. Don’t be afraid to follow up if you haven’t heard from a hiring team; it can show dedication and passion.

Editors mold and craft written work into the perfectly polished prose we see on the page. They are a vital part of the writing process and can make a rewarding career choice. Prospective editors can boost their chances of finding their dream career through education, certifications, and editing societies. Career networking and completing online job applications can also provide more employment opportunities.

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Examples and Guide to Creative Writing

The roots of creative writing lie in creative thinking. But what if you're not the most creative person in the room? That's simply not a good enough reason to lose hope in writing the best creative piece anyone's ever read. In this article, I will show you what you need to get started and the tools with creative writing examples that will help you learn how to write creatively.

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that diverges from the more formal and structured types of writing like technical or academic writing. It typically includes various genres and styles, focusing on character development, narrative, and plot, infused with imagination and storytelling. The primary objective is to evoke emotions and create a vivid experience for the reader.

Creative writing includes many forms, such as children's books, creative nonfiction, graphic novels, memoirs, novels, plays, poetry, screenplays, and short stories. Each form offers unique opportunities for writers to explore different themes, styles, and storytelling techniques. Essential elements of creative writing include as follows that work together to create engaging and immersive narratives that resonate with readers.

Action: Characters’ actions should be purposeful and drive the story forward, based on their motivations and goals.

Character Development: Characters should be unique, three-dimensional, and relatable, with distinct personalities, appearances, and backstories.

Conflict: Essential for moving the story forward, conflict creates tension and stakes, making the story compelling.

Dialogue: Realistic and meaningful dialogue reveals character emotions and advances the plot without being overly expository.

Genre: Creative writing spans various genres like romance, mystery, thriller, horror, fantasy, and more, each with its own conventions and appeal.

Pacing: The speed at which a story unfolds, determined by scene length and information distribution, affects the reader’s engagement.

Plot: The sequence of events that make up a story, starting with an inciting incident and building through rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Point of View: The perspective from which the story is told, such as first person, second person, or third person, shapes the reader’s experience.

Scenes: The building blocks of a story, scenes vary in setting and advance the plot while containing tension and conflict.

Setting: The time, location, and physical environment where the story takes place, contributing to the story’s atmosphere and context.

Style: An author’s unique way of communicating with words, shaped by their voice and overall tone, which can vary based on the type of writing and target audience.

Tension: Keeps readers on the edge of their seats by creating stakes and suspense, essential for maintaining interest.

Theme: The underlying message or concept an author wishes to convey through their work, offering deeper meaning to the narrative.

Examples of Creative Writing

The best way to prompt yourself to write creatively, even when your creativity is running low, is by seeking inspiration. I'll be sharing some examples of creative writing to help you get inspired and understand the essence of creative writing. But first, let's explore the different genres of creative writing:

Fiction is all about creating imaginative stories with characters, events, and settings that are not simply real. This genre allows for complete creative freedom, enabling you to build intricate worlds and compelling narratives from scratch. For instance, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling is a fantasy novel that introduces readers to a young wizard's magical adventures, showcasing how fiction can transport readers to entirely new realms.

2.Non-Fiction

Non-fiction, on the other hand, focuses on real-life events, facts, and people. It aims to provide truthful and informative content. A prime example is "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, which offers a poignant glimpse into the life of a Jewish teenager hiding from the Nazis. This genre captures reality and shares genuine experiences, often leaving a profound impact on readers.

Drama is written to be performed, typically on stage or screen. It centers around dialogue and action, aiming to convey a story through live performances. Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" is a classic example of drama, a tragic play that explores the intense emotions and conflicts between two young lovers from feuding families. The dramatic structure and dialogue drive the narrative forward, engaging audiences in a powerful live experience.

Poetry uses rhythmic and often figurative language to express emotions and ideas in a compact and evocative manner. It can vary from short verses to lengthy compositions, and its flexibility allows for deep personal expression. Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Raven" demonstrates poetry’s ability to create a haunting atmosphere through rhythmic and lyrical language, inviting readers into a world of mystery and emotion.

5.Complex Genres

Beyond these primary categories, there are complex genres that blend elements of traditional writing with unique formats:

Blog posts, for instance, offer an informal and conversational approach to writing about various topics. "10 Tips for Traveling on a Budget" provides practical advice for budget-conscious travelers, showcasing how blog posts can combine personal insights with useful information in a relatable manner.

Screenplays are another complex genre, focusing on scripts for film and television. "The Social Network" by Aaron Sorkin presents the story of Facebook’s creation through dialogue and scene descriptions, illustrating how screenplays translate a narrative into a visual and auditory experience for the audience.

Memoirs, like Michelle Obama’s "Becoming", offer personal reflections and stories tied to a larger theme. This genre allows authors to explore their experiences and convey significant life lessons to readers, creating a connection through shared humanity.

Graphic novels combine text with illustrations to tell a story, as seen in "Maus" by Art Spiegelman. This genre blends art and narrative to explore complex themes, making the storytelling experience both visually and textually rich.

Examining these genres reveals the diverse ways creative writing can be approached. Fiction allows for imaginative storytelling and world-building, while non-fiction grounds writing in real-life truths and experiences. Drama and poetry bring unique stylistic elements to their narratives, whether through performance or lyrical expression.

Complex genres like blog posts, screenplays, memoirs, and graphic novels add further depth to creative writing, each offering distinct ways to engage and entertain audiences. Understanding these genres can provide valuable insights and inspiration, helping you find your own creative voice and craft compelling stories.

How to Start Creative Writing?

Starting your creative writing journey can be an exciting and rewarding experience. As someone who's passionate about writing, I'm eager to share some insights that can help you begin your own creative writing adventure. As we learn how to write and improve our creative writing skills, I'll also teach you how to use tools like WPS Office that fit naturally into the process of writing poetry, articles, and guides. So let's begin the journey of exploring our creativity and transform these thoughts onto a piece of paper or a document in WPS Writer.

Explore Your Thoughts

The first step to beginning any form of creative writing is exploring your thoughts. I believe we all have our own creative side—thoughts and dreams that we wish to bring to life. Creative writing is a way to express these thoughts and help others visualize them.

Start by imagining a scene. For example, envision a magical hero living in a village surrounded by mystical powers, facing troublemakers. Type this down in WPS Writer, which you can access even on your mobile. This allows you to save your thoughts and revisit them later when you have more ideas. Your work will be saved and accessible anywhere because inspiration can strike at any time.

Ponder Your Thoughts

Next, ponder these thoughts. Think deeply about the scene, the characters, the setup, the background story, and the mystical powers you want to include. A well-thought-out story is always more compelling. If you need help, use the WPS AI assistant to brainstorm ideas for your story. With AI, you can boost your imagination and develop richer narratives.

Start Writing

Now, start writing down your thoughts or the ideas from your brainstorming session with WPS AI. This process can take time; you might finish your story in one sitting, or you might write it over several sessions. If you're on a deadline and need to submit your creative story quickly, ask WPS AI to write it for you. Simply describe your plot to WPS AI through a prompt, and have your short story ready in no time. Be sure to edit a few parts to add your unique touch.

Refine Your Story

Once your story is complete, ensure it flows well, uses words correctly, and clearly expresses your thoughts to your readers. If you think improvements are needed, ask WPS AI to make those enhancements for you. The WPS AI “Improve writing” feature can help students and writers refine their stories to make them more effective.

Proofread Your Story

Proofreading is crucial. A story with grammatical errors can leave a poor impression on your readers. Fortunately, WPS Writer, with its built-in AI spell check, can help you make all the corrections with a single click.

Format Your Story

The story is complete, but there's still some work left to do. Your story should not only read well but also be easy to navigate. To achieve this, use WPS Writer's formatting tools: set clear headings, choose a readable font, and adjust the line and paragraph spacing.

Proper formatting can be crucial to engage your readers because if your story looks cluttered, it can negatively impact their reading experience and ultimately their opinion of your writing.

Share Your Story

Finally, save your story and share it with your family, friends, and teachers directly from WPS Office via email. Let others enjoy your writing and discover the creative side you've been nurturing!

While I can't provide a step-by-step guide to writing creative pieces because freehand writing is highly valued in creative writing, I can emphasize how incredibly helpful WPS AI can be in assisting with creative writing tasks. From crafting non-fictional stories to writing poems, brainstorming, and formatting, WPS AI can offer invaluable support in every aspect. It's a perfect writing partner not just for creative writing but for all your academic needs.

Here are some creative writing examples generated with the help of WPS AI:

Start with Observation

The world around you is full of inspiration. Take a moment to truly observe your surroundings.

Read Widely

Reading is essential for becoming a better writer. Explore different genres and styles to broaden your horizons and inspire your own work.

Write Regularly

Like any skill, writing improves with practice. Try to write a little bit every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes. Use WPS Writer to jot down your ideas and format your work as you go.

Embrace Imperfection

Remember, your first draft doesn't have to be perfect. The most important thing is to get your ideas down on paper. You can always revise and polish later.

Seek Inspiration from Various Sources

Look beyond books. Movies, art, music, and even conversations can spark creative ideas. Try writing a story inspired by your favorite song or describing a character based on a painting you love.

Remember, everyone's creative writing journey is unique. Don't be afraid to experiment, make mistakes, and find your own voice. The most important thing is to enjoy the process and keep writing. Who knows? Your next sentence could be the beginning of something amazing!

How to Improve Creative Writing

When you're done with your creative writing piece, you might feel like there's still room for improvement. Identifying where it needs improvement is the first step to figuring out what to fix. Once you know what needs adjustment, you can start making those changes. Here's how you can improve your writing and create a better version of your piece.

What is Good Writing?

Good writing is natural and flows effortlessly, without the writer appearing self-important or overly serious. It's one of the least precise forms of communication since the true intent of the writer is often ambiguous unless they explicitly state their biases and purposes. Writing often reflects another person’s reality, which might not align with our own and can sometimes lead to misunderstandings.

Essentially, good writing should make you forget you are reading. It should be immersive, making you feel connected to the writer’s thoughts as if they were your own. When done well, it creates a seamless experience where you feel as though you know the writer personally and can predict their next words. This connection is achieved through clarity, organization, and a strong sense of purpose.

Ways to Improve Your Writing

If your writing isn't good enough, it might be lacking in several key areas. Consider the following:

1.Usage of Verbs Instead of Adverbs:

Strong verbs can make your writing more dynamic and precise. Instead of saying "ran quickly," say "sprinted."

2.Showing and Not Telling:

Good writing often involves showing rather than telling. Instead of saying "he was angry," describe his actions and expressions, like "his face turned red, and he slammed the door."

3.Diversity of Sentences:

Varying sentence structure can keep your writing interesting. Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, more descriptive ones.

4.Editing After Finishing Your Writing:

The first draft is just the beginning. Revising and editing your work is crucial for clarity, coherence, and overall quality.

5.Using WPS AI to Improve Your Writing:

Tools like WPS AI can help enhance your writing by offering suggestions for clarity, style, and grammar. It's a valuable resource for refining your work and ensuring it's the best it can be.

6.Real-Time Grammar and Syntax Suggestions:

WPS Office includes a powerful grammar and syntax checking tool that operates in real-time. As you write, it continuously scans your text for grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and syntactical issues, highlighting them immediately. This helps you maintain a high standard of writing by ensuring that your text is free from common errors. The real-time feedback allows you to correct mistakes on the go, preventing them from accumulating and making the editing process much smoother.

7.Detailed Explanations and Recommendations:

Beyond simply highlighting errors, WPS Office provides detailed explanations and recommendations for corrections. When it detects a grammatical mistake or a syntactical issue, it offers suggestions and explains why a particular correction is needed. This feature is incredibly beneficial for learning and improvement, as it helps you understand the rules of grammar and syntax better. By consistently using these recommendations, you can enhance your writing skills and produce more polished and professional creative pieces.

1. What is the great opening line for a story?

A compelling opening sentence is almost as crucial as the entire story that follows. It draws the reader in, piquing their interest and establishing the story's atmosphere. They can be startling, humorous, enigmatic, or poignant. Writing can seem daunting when uncertain about topics, but story starters or writing prompts effectively engage the imagination from the outset. Hence, they also inspire students who may face challenges in generating ideas. Here's an example of a great opening line:

"As I wandered through the old, abandoned house, I stumbled upon something overlooked by everyone else."

This opening sentence creates a mysterious and captivating atmosphere, prompting readers to ponder the discovery made by the protagonist and anticipate the unfolding events.

2. Can creative writing be taught?

Yes, creative writing can indeed be taught. Here are some effective methods:

Workshops and Constructive Feedback: Participating in workshops provides a supportive environment where writers receive valuable feedback from peers and instructors. This collaborative process helps refine their skills and discover their unique voices.

Mastering Craft and Technique: Creative writing classes teach essential techniques, including character development, plot structure, and dialogue. These skills develop gradually through practice and guidance.

The Reading-Writing Connection: Exposure to diverse literature enriches a writer’s understanding of storytelling. By reading widely, writers gain insights that inform their own writing practice.

Consistent Practice and Dedication: Regular writing practice, combined with persistence, leads to improvement. Like any skill, creative writing benefits from dedicated effort.

Ignite Your Creative Spark with WPS Office

If you are writing anything, unless it is strictly professional, adding a touch of creativity can make it far more interesting and help you engage with your readers, drawing them into your work. The challenging part about writing creatively is finding that initial spark to make your writing come alive.

WPS Office can help you ignite and sustain that creative spark. It enhances the quality and impact of your creative writing, ensuring that your work is not only technically sound but also engaging and evocative. So, download WPS Office —you might just discover your creative spark there!

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15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software.