As a youngster I often rushed through my writing assignments and didn’t take the time for a second glance, because there was always that important game to play or the TV show to watch. The end result was that I often found myself coming home with a paper that was full of red editing marks. One day, my 9th grade English teacher pulled me aside and asked me “Have you ever heard of the expression that the job isn’t in the writing, it’s in the rewriting?” She helped me realize that revising and editing are essential parts of the writing process and that it is important to take the time to go over your work.
If you have suffered like me, and thought that revising, rewriting and editing was frustrating and/or traumatizing, I am here to share some tricks to help you make it through the editing phase smoothly.
- Put your work aside and take a break before editing
- Print out a copy of your work for editing
- Make sure what you wrote make sense – if it doesn’t make sense to you, then it certainly won’t make sense to others
- Make sure the ideas are well organized and easy to follow
- Use correct grammar, proper spelling and good sentence structure through out your work
- Omit unnecessary information or redundant phrases
- Pay close attention to your formatting choices – stick to reader friendly fonts and sizes
- If you included visuals make sure it is appropriate for what is being discussed in your work
- Look for common factual, punctuation and abbreviation errors
- Ask a family member, friend or a colleague for feedback
- Read through your work one last time before delivering your work
Although, my coming home with red mark covered papers are long over, as a professional writer I am never really satisfied. I often use these same tips to edit and rewrite, and I am perpetually revising my work.
Reference:
Dobrin, S. I., Keller, C. J., & Weisser, C. R. Technical Communications: in the Twenty-First Century, (2002). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Custom Publishing
I loved how you started out the blog entry with a story. It drew me in and kept me interested in the rest of the piece.
ReplyDeleteGood tips Mika! It's true, most of the work is in the editing process, yet it makes a world of difference as we all know. I enjoyed your story as well...a personal touch makes a post more interesting.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your feedback
ReplyDeleteThe story was a great way to start a great post, this will definitely be a post I will look back to when I'm editing any of my future papers.
ReplyDeleteGreat visual and introduction! It really helped me connect with the information you were presenting. A few minor grammar errors but your information was very organized and helpful!
ReplyDelete