How to Edit Your Writing

If you use a word processing program like Microsoft Office, there is already a spell-checker included in the program, helping to ensure accurate spelling. A grammar checker is available as well, but neither of them are 100% reliable. There are many words, including medical, scientific and legal terms which are not recognized by the spell checker. Consequently, these words often get flagged as incorrect even when spelled correctly. An on-line or offline dictionary helps deal with this problem, but when it comes to grammar, only carefully reading through your writing works. This is where an academic editing technique may prove helpful.

Reading carefully

After completing your writing, proofread it by slowly reading through the words in the following manner, "up If you use a word processing program like up M Microsoft, up O Office com there is already a spell hyph checker included in the program com helping to ensure accurate spelling stop" Notice that before reading a word that starts with a capital letter you say the word "up." In place of the word comma, you say "com," where there is a hyphen you say the word "hyph," and rather than say period you say "stop." By editing in this way you are forced to read more slowly which allows you to catch more mistakes. In order to make this method more effective, read a piece of writing to another person while they look at a copy of what you are reading. In this way, the work is being proofread at the same time by two different people, further reducing the chance that typos and grammatical mistakes will be missed.

Writing Pieces

If the piece of writing that you are editing is rather short you may want to edit it by simply re-reading it in a traditional manner, although the above method is good to use for any piece of writing. The previously-mentioned technique is especially helpful for longer pieces of writing in which the chance of error-generation may be greater. The technique is also very helpful when re-writing works that were originally handwritten. Since handwriting can include idiosyncratic spellings and be difficult to read, slowly proofing it helps to reduce the amount errors that such material may have.