: Self Editing tips/tricks I write a daily piece and have been doing so for over 8 years. I think my writing has gotten better, but I still find mistakes at times, or more likely, my readers
I write a daily piece and have been doing so for over 8 years. I think my writing has gotten better, but I still find mistakes at times, or more likely, my readers find mistakes.
Does anyone have good tricks for self-editing? Any tools? I spell check and use Word for grammar checking, but it doesn't seem to work so well and the pace of writing makes it hard to use anyone for editing on a regular basis.
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@Goswami879
Self-editing is challenging, as it is difficult to gain the necessary perspective from your work to be “objective.†Or at the very least clear-eyed enough to spot those niggly errors that we so often find AFTER we push the publish/send button.
I used Grammarly – which is quite useful in picking up contextual spelling errors, and its grammar check is quite good. If you subscribe to the service, it does have a broader range of “document types†like short-story, or article – which narrows the focus of its checks to be specific to those types of document. You can find more information here: www.grammarly.com/
I do also like the idea of printing something out to work on a hard copy – but when this isn’t practical, I save the file as a PDF, and open it in that format. It must do something cognitively because when it is not able to be edited on the fly, and I’m forced to see the work as a whole thing, errors sometimes jump out.
I do also find doing things like changing the font when I re-read something changes the way my eyes skim over lines that I might know quite well. Changing the font forces my re-read to be slower – especially with a slightly difficult to read font. I think this might be best for shorter pieces though – or sections.
As others have suggested – I find examining each word in a reverse order useful for finding spelling errors. But it is time-consuming and can be fatiguing on a longer piece of writing. I find this less helpful for grammar. Reading out loud helps find those difficult sentences.
The main thing I do to condition my self-editing reflex though is to read lots of other things and try and notice the things I would change if it were that my piece of writing – and thinking about why I would do that. This helps me to figure out what is unique to my voice and also trains me to notice the things that jar me when reading. Hopefully, that means I can see those things when writing for others as well.
I hope that’s helpful!
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@Karen856
I wrote this article that gives you five good steps to editing your work. To summarise:
Target overused word
vary your sentence structure
Eliminate cliches
vary repeated words and phrases
brainstorm using existing ideas
I think it gives some constructive steps that might help you.
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@Pope4766717
I recommend the text-to-speech feature on the Amazon Kindle (or an equivalent device), with the read speed set to "slow".
When you read your own work, your mind tends to jump ahead of your eyes (because it already knows what the text is going to say, if only subconsciously). Because of this, you tend to read even the incorrect sentences and words correctly. Missed or duplicated if's, the's, ands and of's for example, are often overlooked.
Newer text-to-speech software are advanced enough to read in a narrative tone that is only slightly mechanical. When I used this approach for the story I'm writing these days, I found dozens of errors of all kinds in every chapter. And I had edited and cleaned up those chapters multiple times before that.
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@Looi5811334
One trick I just recently learned was to change the font before editing. This kinda "tricks" the brain into seeing the writing differently. Milage may vary in the long-term, but it works for me.
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@Goswami879
I edit a number of times, each with a different goal. I will look at a piece once for readability and to eleminate clunky phrases, once for grammer and punctation, etc. Focusing on just one type of reveiw at a time seems to help when I edit my own writing.
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@Frith254
Read it backwards. That's what many newspaper editors do. You overlook mistakes, because your brain knows what there should stand and put it together correctly. You have to fool your brain. If you read backwards, the words do not make sense and you read more accurately.
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@BetL639
Print your work.
I've found that proof-reading a hard-copy is much more effective than proof-reading off a computer screen.
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@YK4692630
While it's not possible for your specific predicament, the question you actually ask is much broader than that.
Put the writing away long enough to forget your state of mind while you were writing it, then re-read it. For some people this could be as short as a day, but I have to wait closer to a month before re-reading what I've written for all the subtle things I could have done better to stand out.
I know that professional author Stephen King says he adheres to a strict schedule when writing. He writes all morning, then reviews all of the previous day's work that afternoon. This way he has plenty of time and other writing-related activities between writing and revising that piece of his story.
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@Welton431
You can read the story aloud. Some errors are better found when you hear them.
You can also record your own voice and listen to it later.
Next, is to have somebody else read the story.
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