Six Tips for Self Editing

[Guest Dabeagle]

I liked all of these, but one which I didn't understand.

Read them here.

[Cole Parker]

I like those. Good advice. And in general, why we need an editor, because it's often difficult to see that stuff in our own writing.

C

[Gee Whillickers]

The problem with self-editing is that I already know what I meant, so errors or awkwardness is easy to ignore or gloss over. A set of objective eyes is needed to catch many errors.

[Lugnutz]

The problem with self-editing is that I already know what I meant, so errors or awkwardness is easy to ignore or gloss over. A set of objective eyes is needed to catch many errors.

Amen.

[Nick Deverill]

One of the reasons doubling up words, ie "Paris in the the spring" and the use of the wrong homophone ie "you're" for "your", "two for too" are often missed.

There are three tips that serve me well:

1/ Change the font as a visual change in appearance helps you see it as a piece of writing, and not your thoughts.

2/ Leave it 24 hours and check again

3/ Read it out aloud to yourself

I'm pretty good at seeing mistakes made by others, but struggle to find my own although the above goes a long way to help.

[Merkin]

I've never tried changing the font, but I heartily support Nick's second and third suggestions. Reading one's stuff aloud catches all sorts of things, and a 24 hour time-out does wonders for one's ability to think clearly about yesterday's magnificent prose.

James

[Cole Parker]

Absolutely right. Reading it aloud also prevents you from skimming, which becomes automatic when reading your own stuff.

C

[The Pecman]

Change the font as a visual change in appearance helps you see it as a piece of writing, and not your thoughts.

What I do in lieu of this is I always try to do my editing on paper, so I have a complete written copy of the manuscript, and then I go through that with pen. Somehow, it reads differently on paper than it does on the screen.

I agree 100% on the ideas of reading it out loud and also leaving it for 24 hours. It's rare that I can crank out an entire chapter in 1 day, so I usually review the manuscript several times over a 2-3 day period.

I agree with all the comments above in that it's amazing how a fresh pair of eyes can see things in the story I never saw. And also disconcerting when you can have 3 or 4 friends read it and miss some crucial details, and then a new person comes along and says, "hey! This makes no sense!" But I'm always grateful when somebody points out an important mistake. Even if it's just a misunderstanding, if it's unclear to that person, it could be unclear to others, so I inevitably will rewrite that slightly to make the meaning more clear.

[EleCivil]

One of the reasons doubling up words, ie "Paris in the the spring" and the use of the wrong homophone ie "you're" for "your", "two for too" are often missed.

There are three tips that serve me well:

1/ Change the font as a visual change in appearance helps you see it as a piece of writing, and not your thoughts.

2/ Leave it 24 hours and check again

3/ Read it out aloud to yourself

I'm pretty good at seeing mistakes made by others, but struggle to find my own although the above goes a long way to help.

All good ones!

One trick that I used as a writing tutor was to have students read their papers backwards. That helps you catch doubles (the the, then then, etc.) and typos, because it breaks the rhythm that you fall into when you read. Granted, that's more proofing than editing, but both are important if you're writing without an editor.