by Kelly Lapp

Created on: May 14, 2008

After spending hours, days, or even months spilling all of your thoughts out on paper, now comes the process of tearing it all apart and putting it back together. If you thought writing was challenging, you haven't experienced anything yet.

Editing is more than just checking for spelling errors and making sure all your commas are in the right places. Editing is making sure all of your points are focused to the topic, making sure they are organized in a way that will make sense to your reader, and making sure they are well-supported and detailed. This process can be difficult for many first time editors. It is hard to break the "comma-habit". However, it is absolutely vital that you look beyond the surface, find the dirt, and clean it out.

One key to editing is to stop looking at the words as the writer and start looking at it as an editor. Sometimes this means taking a break from the paper for a while. Once you are done writing the first draft, set it aside for a while one professor recommended two days of separation before coming back to edit. While this seems like a waste of time, it is actually necessary so that you can create some distance in your mind and your emotions. Writers tend to read what they think they wrote and not what they really wrote. They also tend to be very attached to their "baby" to the point where they can't see anything wrong with it. Distance yourself for your good and for the good of your craft.

Once you have that distance, you can come back to the paper with fresh eyes and a fresh mind. While the commas may now jump out at you with glaring clarity, resist the urge to fix them first. Focus instead on the paper as a whole. Does it make sense? Does it say what you want it to say? Does it flow? Are there any unanswered questions? If there are any issues, fix them now. The real waste of time is fixing all the commas in a paragraph that you later delete because it makes no sense.

Not only should you look at your paper with an editor's eye, but you probably want to ask someone else to, also. Ask a reader to look it over and answer those key questions. This is an excellent opportunity to see your writing as someone else sees it. Pay attention to what your reader points out.

Another helpful habit is to edit what other people write. While you are reading someone else's work, pay attention to what sticks out to you. What do you consider most important when reading a work of literature? What bothers you as a reader? Pay attention to those things, too, and then take those points back to your writing for improvement.

What keeps most good writing from being excellent writing is the lack of proper editing. It can certainly be a painful process for the writer, but after all is said and done, your writing has greater clarity and shine, which means it will have a greater impact on the reader.

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