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Writer's pictureJennifer Beech

4 Ways to Edit Your Writing

I’ve talked a lot about writing, but very little about editing. Editing my own writing took me a long time to master. It is a difficult skill so give yourself plenty of grace. Here are some of my early lessons:


Read out loud. This tip helped me so much. It helped me to slow down and actually read the words on the page. When you’re reading your own writing, you know what you want to say, so it’s easy to skim along thinking everything is fine. But other people may be confused. I realize sometimes you can’t literally read out loud. Maybe you’re in a crowded office or a library. I found that even moving my lips as I read slowed me down enough. I know, it looks funny, but trust me, it works. If you’re able, go to an environment where you can read out loud. Many times as an undergraduate student, I sat in my car and read my papers out loud to myself.

Read what's on the page; don't let your brain fill in missing words. Make sure you’re actually reading what’s on the page. It’s very easy for your brain to fill in the missing “the” or “of” but resist. Read the sentences exactly as you wrote them. Hear and see when something sounds off. It can be easy to read what you ideally would have written to protect your ego, but this won’t help you.

Read your writing several times. It’s very hard to catch every error on the first and only read. I’ve been editing for years and I still can’t do it. Make sure to allot time for editing because it takes longer than a glancing once-over the page. Keep in mind as well that several reads doesn’t mean I’m reading the whole paper over and over again. On one read, I may only read subjects and verbs. On another read, I may only read adverbs. How many reads do I do? Generally, 3-4 depending on time and paper length. My early reads tend to focus on the sentence level–subject/verb agreement, weak verbs, adverbs and -ly words, wordiness, etc. This may take 2-3 reads to catch these errors. The last reads are more global issues like active/passive voice, consistent voice and tone, etc.

Read your writing after a break. If you’re editing your own writing, a fresh set of eyes is ideal. Like I said earlier, you know what you wrote and what you ideally want to say. You want to read your writing like a reader would, someone who doesn’t already know what is written. A good way to sort of forget what you wrote is to take a break for however long you need to. I find overnight works the best for me. If overnight isn’t possible, then starting another activity at least for a few minutes gets my mind off of my writing.


I used and continue to use all of these techniques. My editing process hasn’t changed a whole lot. I can catch more errors in less reads, but that’s about it. Word processing programs can pick up a lot of sentence level errors which saves a lot of time, but global issues take at least one read to catch.




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