Editing
is the preparation of written material for publication. It’s a critical part of
the writing process that shapes a rough draft into a polished final
piece. Editing serves multiple purposes: to fix mistakes, clarify the
message, cut down (or build up) text to meet a specified word count, change the
writing’s tone, make it fit particular constraints, and hone language for an
intended audience.
Thesis
Doctor South Africa
Learning
how to be a good editor will make you a better writer overall. Knowing how to
effectively edit another writer’s work gives you an “insider look” at what’s
behind well-developed pieces. This is because having an editing mind-set
teaches you how to step into the perspective of a reader. It can also make the
writing process feel faster: Instead of thinking “What’s next?” after each
stage, you’ll be able to follow a clear mental map of the journey from
brainstorming to publishing. This will also make you better at editing your own
work, as we explain later. Before you uncap your red pen and get to work,
familiarize yourself with the different types of editing and some editing best
practices.
Types
of editing
There
are seven distinct ways you can edit a piece of writing. Some pieces
require multiple types of editing—possibly all seven! While there are seven
types of editing, in the professional editing world it’s rare for seven editors
to be involved in one piece—it’s more common for one person or a small team to
carry out all of these steps.
Developmental
editing
Developmental
editing takes place at the earliest stage of the writing process. It examines
“big picture” components like the piece’s overall vision and message, and
whether they’re clear throughout. With developmental editing, the goal is to
assess how to present the writing in a clear way that effectively conveys its
goals. If you’re developmentally editing a fiction work, part of this stage
also involves inspecting if certain genre elements align with what readers will
expect from the story.
Structural
editing
Structural
editing, also known as evaluation editing, is similar to developmental editing
in that it also examines your writing’s organization. The difference here is
that with structural editing, the editor specifically examines how the
piece’s structure works to communicate its message, rather than whether it
communicates the message effectively overall. Like developmental editing,
structural editing zooms out, taking a macroscopic look at the writing as a
whole.
Content
editing
While
developmental and structural editing look at the “big picture” of a piece,
content editing is a little more granular. Content editing focuses on the
effectiveness of a piece’s message. It questions if and how a piece aligns to
others like it—specifically, at a magazine, brand blog, or similar
publications. The content editor will scrutinize the flow and
section-by-section construction of the piece and aims to improve consistency,
pacing, appropriateness for the intended audience, and how individual sections
present the writer’s thoughts. A content editor will also check whether a piece
aligns with a brand’s standards and brand voice and tone in order to speak to a
specific audience. Sometimes this also entails having SEO in mind.
Line
editing
Line
editing is done at later stages in the writing process, when the content and
structure are just about publication ready. A line editor does exactly what it
sounds like they would: reads the text line by line and optimizes individual
words, phrases, and sentences to deliver the strongest impact. Line editing
focuses on style and how each individual element contributes to the overall
purpose or effect of a piece. A shrewd line editor will refine writing with a
fine-tooth comb by zeroing in on and upgrading specific words, tightening
sentence structure, and honing pacing. This is where editing can resonate as
more art than science.
Copy
editing
Copy
editing is editing through a more microscopic lens. It’s where you make sure
mechanics are watertight—by auditing spelling, grammar, style, and punctuation.
A copy editor will also enhance a text’s readability, which can involve
finessing transitions, honing language to fit a specific style and audience,
adhering to style conventions, and ensuring logical flow and continuity.
Fact-checking
As
the name implies, fact-checking is the process of checking the facts presented
in a piece of writing to ensure they’re accurate. This can even include
ensuring slang is appropriate for a specific era in a historical fiction novel
or testing that math or figures are correct in a financial report.
Traditionally at publishing houses or at many types of publications like
newspapers and magazines, this is usually done by the copy editor. However, any
editor can bring a fact-checking component to their process.
Proofreading
Proofreading is
often the last stage before a piece is considered final. The proof-reader looks
at a facsimile of the finished piece in its final print-ready presentation. It’s
one final pass to make sure the piece is free of grammatical mistakes,
formatting issues, typographical errors, and layout inconsistencies.
How
to edit any piece of writing
Editing
isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. Some pieces need more—and more kinds
of—editing than others to reach their publish-ready state. However, every
editing job has the same goal: to make the writing as strong as it can
be.
A
strong piece of writing effectively achieves its author’s goals. If the author
is a student whose goal is to write a compelling essay that earns an A, a
strong essay is one that fits the assignment. If the author is a marketer
looking to drive conversions for his e-commerce client, a strong email is one
that has a high open rate and copy that results in a sale. Through thoughtful,
goal-focused editing, you can take any piece of writing from unconvincing to
powerful.
Before
you start editing a piece of writing, identify the writer’s goals. Keep these
goals in mind as you edit because they’ll determine what you’ll change and what
you’ll suggest to the author for their next draft.
You’ll
also want to familiarize yourself with standard proofreader’s marks, especially
if you’ll be editing hard copies. These marks make it easy for the writer and
any other editors with whom you’re collaborating to understand the changes
you’re suggesting.
What
are you editing?
The
type of writing you’re editing determines the types of editing to employ. For
example, if you’re editing your sister’s cover letter, you’ll probably be doing
developmental and structural editing followed by line editing and proofreading.
If you’re editing a press release, you’ll need to make fact-checking part of
the editing process as well as content editing, copy editing, and
proofreading.
Familiarize
yourself with the conventions and restrictions of the type of writing you’re
editing before you start. Similarly, if you’re proofreading a piece, familiarize
yourself with the formatting requirements for that type of writing. For
example, résumés and white papers have very different, but both very
specific, formats. If it’s an academic paper, it most likely has to conform to
the MLA, APA or The Chicago Manual of Style
guidelines. If you’re not sure of the specifics of each, use online
resources to familiarize yourself with them.
Talk
to the writer
Understand
the writer’s goals and process for the piece before you start editing. This
communication helps you determine which type of editing you should do. For
instance, you can determine to developmentally edit a rough draft or content
edit a piece that’s already had larger structural kinks worked out.
The
writer might ask for specific feedback, like whether the protagonist in their
short story is sympathetic enough or whether the points they’re making in their
critical essay are clear. They might also ask for your gut responses as a
first-time reader, like whether their intro guide to HTML is too high level for
beginners or whether they come across as knowledgeable in their blog
post.
In
some cases, the writer might tell you they’ve purposely broken certain grammar
or style rules to achieve a specific effect, like guiding the reader’s eye to
key points in the text or emphasizing certain themes in their work. When this
is the case, your editing focus is more on clarity than grammatical correctness
and your goal is to help keep the author from confusing readers when breaking
conventions.
Keep
the reader in mind
When
you edit, always keep the piece’s eventual reader in mind. This will help you
determine the appropriate tone, the proper word choice swaps to make, and the
best way to organize the content. Consider things like their reading level,
their familiarity with the subject, and the reason why they’re reading the
piece.
A
great way to assess whether a piece of writing is appropriate for its intended
reader is to determine the piece’s readability—the quality of being legible and
understandable by a target audience. There are many elements comprising a
readability score, from sentence structures to word choice. Thesis Doctor
Editor’s offers a variety of suggestions
to improve the readability score for a document. If you’re writing a
presentation for middle schoolers and the readability score clocks in at a
college level, you know you’ve got to make some substantial edits to bring it
to their reading level.
Refer
to an editing checklist
With
the writer’s goals and the requirements for the type of writing in mind, one
way to make sure you don’t overlook anything while you’re editing is to create
an editing checklist. A proofreading checklist is going to include different
points than a structural editing checklist, but keep in mind most editing tasks
don’t fit neatly into one of the categories listed above. This is especially
true if you aren’t a professional editor and are instead your team’s go-to
wordsmith.
For
most editing jobs, a go-to checklist looks like this:
- Spelling
mistakes
- Punctuation
mistakes
- Parallel
structure
- Subject-verb
agreement
- Improper
use of conjunctions and prepositions
- Consistent
tense
- Consistent
tone
- Formatting
mistakes
- Clarity
Once
you’ve got the basics of what makes a thorough editing checklist, you can edit
just about anything, anywhere!!!
Editing
your own work
Editing
your own writing involves the same processes as editing other people’s work.
The only difference is your perspective on the writing. Because you wrote the
piece, you don’t have the luxury of looking at it completely objectively—which
can make self-editing trickier than editing another writer’s
work.
Give
it time to cool off
Although
you can’t completely detach yourself from your writing, you can give yourself a
more objective perspective by waiting to edit it. Instead of going right into
editing as soon as you’re finished writing—which you should only do in
situations where you have no other choice—give it some time and let it
breathe.
Ideally,
close the document and don’t look at it again for another twenty-four hours. If
you can wait longer, that’s even better. By letting time elapse between writing
and editing your work, you’re creating distance between working with it as a
writer and working with it as an editor. This space makes it easier to spot
technical errors like spelling and punctuation mistakes as well as issues like
logical inconsistencies and jarring shifts in tone.
Killing
your darlings
When
you’re editing your own work, you need to be willing to kill your darlings. If
you’re not familiar with the phrase, to “kill your darlings” means to get rid
of sentences, paragraphs and even whole sections of your writing that you might
be proud of, but unfortunately don’t contribute to the piece’s purpose.
In
a lot of cases, these “darlings” are cool pieces of imagery, profound
observations, and cool ways you show off your proficiency as a writer—hence the
term “darlings.” But editing is all about optimizing your writing, so if a
sentence is just hanging out there and doing nothing but looking pretty, it’s
got to go.
Pick
the right words, not the biggest words
One
thing many writers do is use longer, more complex words than necessary.
Sometimes it’s an effort to appear especially educated on or authoritative
about the subject they’re discussing. But in writing, bigger isn’t necessarily
better. In fact, the opposite is often true; concise words and phrases tend to
express points more effectively than complex ones. A writer who can express
their point clearly and quickly can illuminate more for readers than writers
who bog down their message with long words and intricate phrasing. When in
doubt, go with the simpler word.
Solid
editing is the key to great writing
Great
writing doesn’t appear out of nowhere—it’s the result of a thoughtful,
organized editing process. Careful editing with a piece’s goals in mind
throughout can transform an unclear rough draft into a compelling and
communicative work of writing. Whatever you write next, Grammarly can take your
editing process to the next level—ensuring your writing is polished, clear, and
as effective as possible.
THESIS DOCTOR EDITORS HAVE MORE THAN TEN YEARS EXPERIENCE
EDITING DOCUMENTS!!! CONTACT US TO EDIT & PROOFREAD YOUR PIECE OF WRITTEN
MATERIAL!!!
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