The Two Stages of Editing
When editing any piece, there are two primary areas of editing to focus on:
1) Content editing. This means looking at the piece as a whole, deciding which sections work, which don't work, what's too heavy, what's too light, looking at the tone, etc. You're looking for both quantitative (i.e. Are words being used economically? Is this section too long or too short?) and qualitative (i.e. Are the right words used? Is the writing clear? Are the ideas consistent?) improvements. Try to identify the strongest and weakest points of the piece. As you may guess, this will take time, so at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I say again, leave yourself ample time for editing! 24 hours is a minimum!
2) Line editing. This stage focuses on the form that the writing takes, also called copyediting. Please, please, please do it! There are so many brilliant, gorgeous works that come my way that have silly little errors (a missing period here, an extra space there, a typo, an unfinished sentence, a grammatical mistake). I have been guilty of it myself, and it makes your piece look unpolished, unfinished and unprofessional. It's an unnecessary eyesore that distracts and detracts from what you're trying to express.
Why should you separate them?
It's hard to do, I'll admit freely (especially if you suffer from mild to moderate pedantism, like moi). They are intrinsically related, but if you force yourself to separate them out, you end up with a much more thorough and subjective edit than you would if you did them simultaneously.
A final tip: Always have someone else look over your work (like me!). They will be able to give you a different perspective, and if they're thorough, they will always notice things that you missed on your own.
In the content editing stage, two of the most valuable things they can do is gauge the strength of your thesis and/or argument, provide feedback on the consistency and clarity of your arguments (if it's an essay). If it's a creative work, they can gauge the quality of your plot and characters as well as tell you how clearly you're communicating your thoughts (this often becomes obvious in the questions they ask, and most importantly, the impression they walk away with, so always ask them what they thought in terms as specific as possible without telling them what you meant to do).
In the line editing stage, quite often when you do it yourself, your mind often inserts letters/words that are actually missing or extra because you know what you're trying to say. It can also skip over little mistakes. A second person is much more likely to notice this (so don't let that second person be your audience!).
Don't believe me? Read back over an old piece of yours and just see if you don't notice things you missed the first time! (It happens to me all the time with this blog, for instance!)
1) Content editing. This means looking at the piece as a whole, deciding which sections work, which don't work, what's too heavy, what's too light, looking at the tone, etc. You're looking for both quantitative (i.e. Are words being used economically? Is this section too long or too short?) and qualitative (i.e. Are the right words used? Is the writing clear? Are the ideas consistent?) improvements. Try to identify the strongest and weakest points of the piece. As you may guess, this will take time, so at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I say again, leave yourself ample time for editing! 24 hours is a minimum!
2) Line editing. This stage focuses on the form that the writing takes, also called copyediting. Please, please, please do it! There are so many brilliant, gorgeous works that come my way that have silly little errors (a missing period here, an extra space there, a typo, an unfinished sentence, a grammatical mistake). I have been guilty of it myself, and it makes your piece look unpolished, unfinished and unprofessional. It's an unnecessary eyesore that distracts and detracts from what you're trying to express.
Why should you separate them?
It's hard to do, I'll admit freely (especially if you suffer from mild to moderate pedantism, like moi). They are intrinsically related, but if you force yourself to separate them out, you end up with a much more thorough and subjective edit than you would if you did them simultaneously.
A final tip: Always have someone else look over your work (like me!). They will be able to give you a different perspective, and if they're thorough, they will always notice things that you missed on your own.
In the content editing stage, two of the most valuable things they can do is gauge the strength of your thesis and/or argument, provide feedback on the consistency and clarity of your arguments (if it's an essay). If it's a creative work, they can gauge the quality of your plot and characters as well as tell you how clearly you're communicating your thoughts (this often becomes obvious in the questions they ask, and most importantly, the impression they walk away with, so always ask them what they thought in terms as specific as possible without telling them what you meant to do).
In the line editing stage, quite often when you do it yourself, your mind often inserts letters/words that are actually missing or extra because you know what you're trying to say. It can also skip over little mistakes. A second person is much more likely to notice this (so don't let that second person be your audience!).
Don't believe me? Read back over an old piece of yours and just see if you don't notice things you missed the first time! (It happens to me all the time with this blog, for instance!)
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