Editing and Proofreading Tips Every Blogger Should Know!
There is always one big difference that separates writers that get read a lot and those that don't: Editing. Editing and proofreading not only serves to
help improve your writing, it helps you spot problems and bad habits you have as a writer, which can help you solve them and becoming a better writer.
This is something you want, as today is known as the golden age of the writer down to one major factor - never before has there been a greater demand for
writers, through online publications, content marketing in a constantly thriving inter-connected world of knowledge.
Let's get into the process of making you a better writer.
Don't rush it
When writing a text, you usually get really into it, spending concentrated sessions writing and editing. However, it's important to distance yourself from
the text, and take a break before you start editing. This will allow you to distance yourself enough to see your work from a different perspective.
Turn your text upside down
Need a blog written fast? Don't have time to take some distance? Try turning your text upside down. This will make the text much harder to read, and therefore,
will slow you right down, making you read what is actually there instead of what you wanted to write.
This way, you'll catch the mistakes that you may have missed if you had read the text the normal way.
Try not to edit as you write
When writing, you have to focus yourself on actually writing, and not on how good it is and whether you need to change anything or not.
These two things should be split up; when you're writing, don't worry about what you're putting down, just focus on getting your ideas onto page, and get
the draft out there. After all, there's always going to be at least one mistake, so just remember you can always edit once you've finished writing,
as it will be much more effective.
As an extra bonus, this will make you a far more productive writer as well.
Don't just edit your own work
Really keen to become a better writer? Then edit other people's work. This works better than just reading it, as you read the text differently when you're
in the process of slicing and rearranging the text structures.
You may come to a part where you think to yourself, 'this is really good', but wonder why it was so good, and start to analyse why it works so well. You
can then incorporate these ideas into your own text.
Not sure how good or bad someone else's writing is? Think about how jealous you feel. The more jealous you feel, the better the piece of writing is.
Don't edit in the same file
Once you've finished your work, along with saving it as the original file, save a copy. This is such an easy step, but is so vital as it gives you the
freedom to cut, move around or change the entire layout of the file, without having to worry about losing some truly valuable content.
It does happen sometimes, you edit a text and end up making is worse than it was, which can be highly discouraging. However, the chances of this will be
far less if you have the original file lying around.
Furthermore, if you do this often enough, you can see how much better your text becomes as a result of editing them, further improving you as a writer.
Use the tools that are out there
There are plenty of tools online that can help drastically with your editing, such as Grammarly and the Hemingwayapp.
Grammarly is something that you can install straight onto your computer and it will point out mistakes right as you write, by underlining them with a big
red line. This way, you'll immediately pick up on any mistakes you've made. It also will load straight into your internet window, so even your comments
and your emails will get checked. What's more, it picks up on more mistakes than Microsoft Word does, which is quite something.
The Hemingway App is slightly harder to use but that doesn't mean it's any less useful. You just go to the page, dump your text into the window, and it
will analyse the text for you, point out which sentences are hard to read and where you can use easier language.
All points aside, you have to edit. It's what separates the goods from the greats. And why do something if you're not going to try to be the best you can
be?
