Editing and Proofreading

This handout provides some tips and strategies for revising your writing. To give you a chance to practice proofreading, we have left seven errors (three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors) in the text of this handout. See if you can spot them!

Is editing the same thing as proofreading?

Not exactly. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading

• Get some distance from the text! It’s hard to edit or proofread a paper that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still to familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. Go for a run. Take a trip to the beach. Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. Someone who is reading the paper for the first time, comes to it with completely fresh eyes.

• Decide what medium lets you proofread most carefully. Some people like to work right at the computer, while others like to sit back with a printed copy that they can mark up as they read.

• Try changing the look of your document. Altering the size, spacing, color, or style of the text may trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing an unfamiliar document, and that can help you get a different perspective on what you’ve written.

• Find a quiet place to work. Don’t try to do your proofreading in front of the TV or while you’re chugging away on the treadmill. Find a place where you can concentrate and avoid distractions.

• If possible, do your editing and proofreading in several short blocks of time. Your concentration may start to wane if you try to proofread the entire text at one time.

• If you’re short on time, you may wish to prioritize. Make sure that you complete the most important editing and proofreading tasks.

Editing

Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. You can edit on several levels:

Content

Have you done everything the assignment requires? Are the claims you make accurate? If it is required to do so, does your paper make an argument? Is the argument complete? Are all of your claims consistent? Have you supported each point with adequate evidence? Is all of the information in your paper relevant to the assignment and/or your overall writing goal? (For additional tips, see our handouts on understanding assignments and developing an argument.)

Overall structure

Does your paper have an appropriate introduction and conclusion? Is your thesis clearly stated in your introduction? Is it clear how each paragraph in the body of your paper is related to your thesis? Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence? Have you made clear transitions between paragraphs? One way to check the structure of your paper is to make a reverse outline of the paper after you have written the first draft. (See our handouts on introductions, conclusions, thesis statements, and transitions.)

Structure within paragraphs

Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? Does each paragraph stick to one main idea? Are there any extraneous or missing sentences in any of your paragraphs? (See our handout on paragraph development.)

Clarity

Have you defined any important terms that might be unclear to your reader? Is the meaning of each sentence clear? (One way to answer this question is to read your paper one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working backwards so that you will not unconsciously fill in content from previous sentences.) Is it clear what each pronoun (he, she, it, they, which, who, this, etc.) refers to? Have you chosen the proper words to express your ideas? Avoid using words you find in the thesaurus that aren’t part of your normal vocabulary; you may misuse them.

Style

Have you used an appropriate tone (formal, informal, persuasive, etc.)? Is your use of gendered language (masculine and feminine pronouns like “he” or “she,” words like “fireman” that contain “man,” and words that some people incorrectly assume apply to only one gender—for example, some people assume “nurse” must refer to a woman) appropriate? Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences? Do you tends to use the passive voice too often? Does your writing contain a lot of unnecessary phrases like “there is,” “there are,” “due to the fact that,” etc.? Do you repeat a strong word (for example, a vivid main verb) unnecessarily? (For tips, see our handouts on style and gender-sensitive language.)

Citations

Have you appropriately cited quotes, paraphrases, and ideas you got from sources? Are your citations in the correct format? (See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for more information.)

As you edit at all of these levels, you will usually make significant revisions to the content and wording of your paper. Keep an eye out for patterns of error; knowing what kinds of problems you tend to have will be helpful, especially if you are editing a large document like a thesis or dissertation. Once you have identified a pattern, you can develop techniques for spotting and correcting future instances of that pattern. For example, if you notice that you often discuss several distinct topics in each paragraph, you can go through your paper and underline the key words in each paragraph, then break the paragraphs up so that each one focuses on just one main idea.

Beginner -- Don't Write That Novel!

My usual advice to beginners is not to strike out for the Great American (or British) novel but instead to concentrate for a considerable time, maybe as much as a year, writing short stories and doing exercises. I’d like to try and carefully outline why I think this is a solid and justifiable ideal.

Beginning Writing — Short Stories vs. The Novel
Writing short stories allows the writer to experiment and find himself. Beginners very rarely have their natural voice when they begin writing. By learning about themselves, through writing many separate pieces, they find those styles, points-of-view, viewpoints, and language that are more natural to them. Commonly, beginners try to write like those authors they admire or authors who have written books similar to the kind they hope to write. Often this style may not be the one best suited to the particular writer. It is also common to see beginners change styles WITHIN books.

Burn Off the Autobiographical Urge
A common failing with beginning writers is that they write too close to themselves, producing autobiographical or near-autobiographical work. Though some great autobiographical novels have been written, most creative writing teachers are well aware that the autobiographical urge needs to be spent before the beginner learns that good writing needs to be generalisable. The writing of many short stories usually burns off this rarely desirable tendency and should some of the material be noticeably special it is still available as the basis for a longer work.

Variety of Experience
If students are writing a single novel, perhaps two in their first year, though this would be rare, they can, at the most, explore writing in two genres. If, on the other hand, students are writing, say, one short story a week they can try many many genres, styles, viewpoints; they can explore the terse hard-boiled Ford/Hemingway approach, the lyrical styles of Laurie Lee or Dylan Thomas, John Irving, and many points in between. This is not the case if they are writing novels.

Beginners Get Used to Completing Tasks.
One major advantage of writing short stories to begin with is that the one or two thousand word task seems less intimidating than the novel and far more achievable.

Quicker, Better Feedback.
It is easier to get proper feedback on a short story because it is a complete entity. Thus, by writing many shorts the student gets repeated feedback and learns more quickly about his strengths and weaknesses.

Easily Focused Teaching/Learning.
A sympathetic teacher can design short story tasks to develop those areas seen as weakest. This is virtually impossible if the student is writing a novel.

More Meaningful Cross-criticism
Students writing short stories can be encouraged to exchange works and learn by cross-reviewing each other’s work. Though this can be done with novel extracts, the story, by being complete, being finite, is more easy to judge. Further, where same-subject shorts are being exchanged, it is easier and clearer to understand how different approaches to the same initial subject alter the final work. With differently-titled novels, approach may well be obscured by subject matter.

Comparison and Identifying Voice and Style
In classes, getting students to produce shorts has the advantage of compare and contrast. This is obviously less easy with novels on often vastly different subjects. By creating a single subject task, the teacher has the advantage that all students are working in roughly the same area, and, since the initial subject matter is the same, s/he is more easily able to note the student’s individual characteristic set against a constant.

Discipline
The discipline of the short story, the need to say as much as possible in a few words as possible is an excellent teacher. The ability to paint briefly is not wasted but makes the eventual novelist a better one. John Gardner was very keen to emphasize the usefulness of small focused exercises in which the student could concentrate on selected areas of his art. Teachers can shape and point far easier when the target is an exercise or short story.

Less Waste, More Material
A wasted novel is for most beginners a wasted year. A wasted short story is typically a few days or a week. Though it is true that theoretically a student could write 52 consecutive wasted short stories, experience tells us otherwise, since, after every story, finite, complete, the student has usually learned something. In the case of the novel the student does not learn much until he has completed his long and arduous task and submits.

Nothing Wasted
Novels are rarely honed down to short stories. The reverse is not true. Short stories have been made into novellas, short stories made into novels, and short stories have been made into films.

Short stories contain all the major elements of good writing.
Beginning, middle and end, dialogue, characterization, conflict and change. It is easier to teach for example, the idea of premise/theme on a single short than on a novel. A student can be asked to write a 2,000 word short illustrating a proverb without ever referring to it or proving a statement such as “All men are pigs”. It hardly needs saying that a teacher cannot realistically ask students to produce a novel to do the same.

Why Learn to Paint While Painting the Sistine Chapel?
Let us just imagine a student with a truly great idea for a novel; a story idea that might change the world or earn the writer fame and fortune. Why, why on earth would that writer embark on the great novel and IN THE PROCESS OF WRITING IT, learn his skills? Why not first make sure of those skills before risking a great concept to inexperience? Every single word he writes before he embarks on the precious expansion of that wonderful idea makes it more likely he is a competent writer and less likely that the fabulous idea be wasted. Imagine if Michaelangelo had STARTED by trying to paint the Sistine Chapel!