A few days after posting Part I of my editing tips, I heard from a writer whom I used to work with. He thanked me for my helpful advice, but wanted to know if I could go a little deeper. Like so many professional journalists these days, time (or lack of it) is one of his biggest enemies when it comes to accuracy, and he asked if I could offer him suggestions on how to prevent skipped words, extra words and other errors.
So, I’m going to repeat a little bit of the advice that I gave him, in hopes that it can help more of the writers who are increasingly having to do the work of two people, if not more.
I want to reiterate that I think one of the best approaches to preventing mistakes is to read what you’ve written (or even whisper) out loud — which is especially good for finding missing words and repetition. It can also help with misplaced modifiers, another popular mistake. (Particularly common in classifieds. For sale: Beautiful writing desk for ladies with finely carved legs and large drawers.)
I know this next one is difficult to do for a writer, but at some point when you’ve more or less finished your article or Web site or whatever, you’ve got to read through it as if you aren’t the writer, as if you don’t know everything about the story/person/event/topic. Obviously, as the writer, you’ve got SO MANY details running through your head when you’re reading your own work, but if you want to do a good self-edit, you need to just focus on the words — not all the work/research/reporting that are behind the words.
After all, the reader is only going to see the words on the page, or the Web site (she’s not going to know the “back story” — and she’s not going to care).
I’ve been working with this man who hired me to help him improve his writing skills to advance his career. He’s actually quite good already. Whenever I have him write passages, or edit long passages, if I notice several mistakes, I ask him to read out loud. And it’s amazing how I can literally see the lightbulb come on when he vocalizes any writing mistakes he made.
Reading your writing aloud is nothing new — some of the best writers and reporters I know do it religiously. And as hard-pressed as you often are for time, it’s something you have to make time for — especially if your writing has a lot of errors in it.
The Final Word 