Writers around the world agree... it's nearly impossible
to edit your own writing. We tend to fall in love with
our words the moment they burst onto the screen and, as
you know, love is blind.
Obviously a professional proofreader/copy editor is the
ideal solution. If it takes a village to raise a child,
it takes a hamlet of editors and proofreaders to nurture a masterpiece. But what if you can't afford it or you're under deadline pressure with no time for a
second opinion? This is not a happy situation but in a
pinch you can edit your own writing. Here's how:
-> After you've finished the piece and spell-checked it,
give it a rest. Wait as long as you can - sleep on it
if possible - before coming back and proofing it for
errors you missed the first time. Re-read it at least ten
times. Then read it backwards, last sentence to first.
-> Be ruthless. Whittle convoluted thoughts down into the
fewest words without losing the meaning. For example, "She
received the support of 21 senators among those senators
who were present for the vote" becomes, "Twenty-one
senators voted for her."
-> Root out passive statements like the example above and flip them into active
ones. Your Microsoft Word spell checker has a feature that
will tell you how many passive sentences are in a document.
It even tells you what grade level your piece is written
for. Hint: Aim as low as possible - below grade eight if
you can. (To activate this feature, check the box beside
"show readability statistics" on the Spelling and Grammar
options page).
-> One idea per sentence, please. You will immediately
understand why when you read the following lead from an actual
published newstory:
"John Robinson Smythe, one of the supposedly
confessed masterminds behind the murder of the Senator, told
journalists at the New City courthouse when he was being
taken back to his cell after being questioned by Judge
Nelson Emmanuel on the day of his hearing that he was not
the person who wore the mask when the Senator was killed." ...Huh?
-> Check the math. In economics stories especially, it's
easy to drop a zero and even easier to duplicate somebody
else's mistakes.
-> Double check for double meanings. For example, the
following promotional blurb recently turned up in an ad for
casinograpevine.com: "The Casino News Portal for Women
that Men Can't Resist!" So it's a portal for women who
are irresistible to the opposite sex or... ?
-> Keep an eagle eye open for the little oopsy-daisies we
all make. Typing "you" instead of "your" is a common one.
So is using "that" instead of "who". Example: "All the
writers WHO (not THAT) proofread their stories carefully
win Pulitzer Prizes." If you need a grammar booster shot,
visit any of these sites:
http://www.webgrammar.com
http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
http://www.grammarlady.com/faq.html
http://englishplus.com/grammar/
-> Find out what style manual/guidelines are used by the
publication you're writing for and adhere to them.
-> Now do the first item on this list again. I can't tell
you how many times I've caught my own bloopers or found a
better way to phrase something on the 15th or 20th pass.
So that's how, in an emergency, you can do your own
editing. Sure, working without an editor can have its
upside. It means never having to say, "You messed with
my art, you creep!" But the downside is that you will
probably overlook mistakes that the "village" would have
caught.
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