Editing – 8 Self Editing tips for writers

Being a freelance writer, are you editing your work before final submission? Self-editing is a section of developing an assignment for submission to a client. If your client has editors who will evaluate your work before it is published, you need to be sure that you send in something that gives your most excellent work.

If you are working with a small business client, there may not be a specific person who has been designated as the editor for your work. In that situation, it is even more vital that you make doubly sure that your work has been carefully polished before you submit it.

Here are 8 Self Editing tips explained:

1. Don’t attempt to edit quickly after you complete writing.

Step back from what you have written and furnish yourself some time. If you have an emerging deadline and can’t leave it overnight, try to make it sit for a few hours by engaging yourself for a walk. Then, when you sit down to look at the content again, it will be moderately new.

2. Analyze if the points go with the topic, and the content usually continues well.

If you are working as an editor, you don’t want to get swamp down in developing the concepts in the writing unless they are severely imperfect. So make sure that the basic formation looks pretty firm so that you can continue. You can forever save a copy of your original document and revert to it if you don’t feel sure about changing it. 

3. Verify grammar and structure in the article, blog post, etc

Constantly run a spellcheck, and be sure to correct the grammar of unique words you are not sure about. Improve your spellcheck to display US English, UK English, or Canadian English readers, as needed.

4. Edit with a hard copy if you find it more comfortable 

Some people find it much simpler to edit if they can keep it in their hands and make changes. If this approach suits your technique, go ahead and utilize it. You may also feel it essential to understand your document clearly to get a feel for its rhythm. This method is an outstanding idea to discover where natural breaks in sentences should be, especially commas.

5. Be hard about reducing excess words.

Don’t act like someone getting paid by the word. Instead, get relieved of the word “that” in sentences where it helps an actual demand. In many cases, it is overused. 

6. Get the Font one Size Larger than the Surrounding Text for Extra Impact.

Watch your sentence and section lengths. There are no particular terms and conditions about how long a sentence or a paragraph should be, but between three and five sentences is a good baseline to have in mind. Again, try to stick with one idea per sentence, which can be easier said than done. 

7. Check sources for all of your bases.

If you relate to anything that is not general knowledge, be assured to provide references for your material. Give either a direct link or a connection where you found the information in your text, e.g., according to….

8. Go over the whole document before presenting it.

Now that you have looked at several parts of the document, make sure you have told your concepts entirely to make sense to the reader. Do the last spellcheck before submitting as well to make any last-minute mistakes.

All these actions may be time-consuming, but they are part of preparing your work for submission. Of course, they add some time to preparing your outcome for the client, but taking the extra time to run through a self-edit is worthwhile.