Revising, Editing, and Proofreading Your Writing

Writing is a way for you to express your ideas and thoughts on paper. Whether you are just writing for fun or writing for school/work, you ideally want what you’ve written to be high quality. Perfecting your written work and becoming a better writer is easier said than done. However, there are methods you can use to refine your writing.

Proofreading your own work more than once can help improve the quality of your writing. You can try reading your own work after you’ve finished what you’re writing. You may notice some mistakes or areas you can make improvements and/or clarifications. Once you’re done making your edits, put it aside for a period of time. After a few hours or even a day or two, read what you wrote again. I notice that when I do this, I find errors that I didn’t see the first time I proofread it. This can be an effective strategy for you to minimize the mistakes in your own writing.

Getting feedback from others is almost always beneficial for your writing to reach the next level. As much as you may feel that you’ve written something that is perfect, someone else may notice something that can be fixed or improved. Just having a different set of eyes looking at your work can help you fix the grammar or phrasing of something you wrote, or he/she can give you new ideas that you may not have thought of to incorporate into the content of your writing.

When I was given writing assignments in school, my classmates and I would also be required to edit each others’ papers. I initially thought of this as an unnecessary and mundane task. I thought that my peers wouldn’t be able to give me any real constructive feedback compared to the feedback that the teacher would typically provide me with. However, to my surprise, I noticed how beneficial some of their comments and remarks were. Often, these peer editing sessions took place before the final essay was graded, so it was basically a free opportunity to fix errors ahead of time. I am sure these sessions helped me receive better grades on my writing assignments, and have ultimately helped me become a better writer. The opportunity to read others’ papers at the same time also provided me with ideas that I could incorporate into my own paper.

Proofreading your work multiple times and getting help from others to read what you’ve written are strategies you can use to improve the quality of your writing. If you’re interested, you can check out these 5 tips you can use when providing feedback to someone else’s written work: https://www.proofreadingacademy.com/advice/5-top-tips-for-giving-great-feedback-on-a-document/

A helpful tool you can use to compose bold, clear, mistake-free writing is Grammarly. You can check it out here: https://www.grammarly.com/

You can also watch this video for proofreading tips that you may not have learned in school:

-- BitterSweet Coaching Guest Writer