10 Easy Tips on How to Edit Your Writing

Whether you’re writing a blog for your website or an article for a guest post, you need to know that the perfect writing piece doesn’t happen the moment you sit down to write.

In other words, no one has a good first draft.  

A good writing piece usually involves experimenting with different writing styles, rereading your work a hundred times over, and of course, a lot of editing.

Editing and proofreading are the two ways you can do to check for any grammatical errors, misspellings, typos, and the clarity of your ideas. They play a key role in perfecting your piece.  

That’s why it’s important that you never skip them.  

But, how should one edit? Is there a proper way of doing it?

As your go-to Florida internet marketing company, we will share with you the editing tips we use when making blog posts for our clients, as well as our website.  

Let’s get started!

10 Easy Tips on How to Edit Your Writing

Never Edit as You Write

When writing, do you have this habit of going over a sentence again and again trying to edit it to perfection?  

If so, you’re not alone.  

Editing while writing is a common problem among writers. If we see something is off with our writing, we can’t seem to move on until it’s ironed out!

However, it’s not the most effective thing to do.

You see, when you’re in writing mode, you activate the creative side of your brain. And, when you’re in editing mode, you activate the critical side of your brain.  

Trying to do these two things at a time means you’re constantly switching between the creative and critical side of your brain. This can prevent you from entering a flow state wherein you’re completely focused and you’re writing without thinking.

Multitasking will only deplete your focus and result in poor quality work. Plus, it’ll take you forever to finish an article!

The most effective sequence for you to follow is to word vomit now, then edit later.  

Look at Your Work with Fresh Eyes

For the best results, you want to edit your work with fresh eyes.  

If this means walking away from your writing project for a while or dedicating a different day or two to refine your work, then do what works for you.

Just avoid editing right after you’ve finished writing because it can cloud your judgment and prevent you from looking at your work objectively.

What we do here at DR is we either print out what we’ve written, change its font, or take a break for an hour or so before we proceed to editing.  

Reading what you’ve written on printed paper allows you to see mistakes more easily compared to trying to track down errors on a computer screen.  

If you feel like this is too much work, you can try changing the font style of your article and decide whether it helps you see your work with fresh eyes.  

Read Out Loud

Reading what you’ve written aloud is another effective way of identifying any errors in your work and if your point is clear.  

You can read out loud or ask somebody else to read your work while you listen for lines that don’t make sense, any overuse of particular words, or redundant phrases.  

Follow a Style Guide

A style guide is a set of standards for writing. It tells you how you should format and design your documents, depending on what style guide you’re following.  

When writing an article or blog for your website, follow a certain style guide because it helps make sure that your voice sounds and feels consistent.

This helps provides a continuous brand experience for your audience whenever they read your content.

Here’s a list of some of the different types of style guides:

• ACS Style Guide
• California Style Manual
• AP Stylebook
• APA Style
• The Bluebook
• The Business Style Handbook
• AMA Manual of Style
• The ASA Style Guide

Format What You’ve Written

Making your title and subheading bold, adding bullets, and using a 12 point-font are great ways to give your work a professional look.  

Once your work looks more put together, it’ll be easier to read and review.  

Below are some of the best practices for formatting documents:

• Your font point size should not be smaller than 12 to ensure readability.
• Choose a sans serif font.  
• Use bold, italic, or underline if necessary.
• Avoid using all capital letters in your sentence.
• Capitalize proper nouns and proper adjectives.
• Format your document using a block style.
• Use bullets for lists and key points.
• Spell out acronyms the first time you use them.
• Make sure your URLs are linked to active websites.  
• Use proper punctuation marks.
• Always write in an active voice. Rewrite any passive sentences in your work.

Break Up Your Work in Sections

Sometimes, editing can get overwhelming, especially when you’re tackling long-form content.  

The best way to solve this is by breaking up your work into sections and focusing on one thing at a time.  

Doing this allows you to be more thorough and effective in your editing.  

For example, when editing your piece, you can start by formatting it first so it’s clean to look at and easier to read. Next, read it aloud to assess your sentence structures and to identify if you’ve clearly delivered your point.  

Then, check for any typos or misspellings. After that, run it through a plagiarism check. Finally, proofread your work again to see if there’s anything you missed.  

Run Your Work Through Spell Check

Aside from personally checking your work for any misspelled words, you can also run your work through spell check to make sure you didn’t miss anything.  

Grammarly is an online writing assistant you can use to check for spelling, grammatical errors, punctuation, clarity, and other mistakes in real-time.  

However, you do want to be careful when using it because it can’t read the intent or the context of your words. So, always double-check.  

Scan Your Work for Plagiarism

Using a plagiarism checker can help you identify sentences in your work that are similar to others.

This way, you can rewrite them or create citations to avoid confusing search engine bots from ranking another blog that has similar content with you.  

Avoid Using the Thesaurus While Editing

As much as possible, avoid using the thesaurus when editing because you may end up replacing words in your work with terms that aren’t suitable for the mood you’re trying to convey.  

If you need to replace words that you’ve overused throughout your article, choose a term that best fits the context of your work.  

Always Proofread

When editing your writing, you want to proofread your work last.  

Proofreading is important because it refines your work to a high standard.

There might be sentences you need to rewrite, organize the sequence of your thoughts to make your point clearer, or check for any errors you might’ve missed. That being said, you should always proofread your work for the very last time before you submit or hit publish.  

If you feel like you need professional help with editing or making content for your website in general, don’t hesitate to ask the best Florida internet marketing company for assistance.  

Doing this can free you up more time to do work you can’t delegate to others, and it can make a big difference for your website.  

Looking for a Florida Internet Marketing Company to Help You with Blogging?

Editing your writing can be challenging, but with the 10 tips we shared above, we’re sure you’ll learn how to do it more effectively and efficiently in no time!

Digital Resource is your go-to Florida internet marketing company. We can help you create, produce, and develop blogs for your website that will not only capture your target audience, but also convert them into paying customers. Contact us today to know how we can help your business succeed!