4/11/2023 0 Comments Elucidate writing and editing![]() Go on, be brave and kill your darlings now. Anything that doesn’t make sense, anything that doesn’t sound right to your ears kill it. Avoid unnecessary words.Īs Stephen King has said famously (and not famously said – remember not to split the infinitive),Įdit, edit, edit. Do not waste words, do tight editing where every word means something. Is there anything that really worries you? It’s much better to take it out now than to have regrets later.īrevity is the secret of good writing. Remember to use spell check as well as your eyes. Do the best you can and then move on.Ĭheck for spelling and grammar. Make sure full stops, commas, apostrophes and dashes are in their proper places. Reign over pesky punctuation and grim grammar ![]() ![]() “She stole from her Mum so she could splurge on the jewellery.” Much better. “She did the crime so she could pay for the jewellery.” Weak. Try using strong verbs for action, be bold. Writing in the active voice will make it much easier for you to stick to the text guidelines. Often, the sentence becomes shorter as well. ⌄ Scroll down to continue reading article ⌄ You might as well stop wasting your time as well as the reader’s. If you lose your reader at this stage, there is no point to your writing. ![]() What is the most interesting bit or angle about your writing? Clue the reader in early and don’t bury the introduction in the body of the text. Here is a list of 7 rules that will help you to revise and edit your work painlessly – or at least with the least amount of it. You need to do these things but you don’t necessarily have to go back to a classroom setting. Really, who has a brain to for that? Not me, for sure.ĭo we really need to go back to school and learn grammar and punctuation all over again? Do we really need to take writing classes to understand the basics of forming intelligent sentences? You are required to understand the difference between a colon and a semi one, the misplaced modifier, and the rules on splitting the infinitive. When you write, you constantly feel the pressure of mastering the art of using commas. I thought my credibility as a Business Writer would be shot to pieces. What if somebody catches my mistake, corrects it and lets the world know? I would agonize over this problem. I had the debilitating fear of making a mistake – a simple error. Read through the paper one last time and fix any other errors you spot.For the longest time, I was too scared to publish anything on my blog.Input the edits into your computer (saving the paper as a new version) and print out a clean copy.( The Bedford Handbook and Rules for Writers, both by Diana Hacker, are excellent choices.) If you are unsure about something, consult your course reader or grammar handbook.This process will be time-consuming at first, but the more you concentrate on and fix individual types of errors, the more the correct grammar will be reinforced in your brain and the quicker those errors will disappear from your drafts. Read through your paper once for each of those error types-i.e., one at a time, checking only for that problem.Print out the Personalized Editing Checklist, and in addition to the common errors listed there to check, keep a running list of errors that you are prone to, such as incorrect article usage, word order, or plural/singular nouns.(Most people can catch errors better on paper than on a screen.) After you have finished inputting your revisions, print out a clean copy of your paper. ![]() "There are two typos of people in this world: those who can edit and those who can't." -Jarod KintzĪgain, editing should be the last step of your process because during revision you will often have to add or delete sentences or entire paragraphs, and it doesn't make sense to edit things you're going to cut nor to have to edit twice. ![]()
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