Steps to Self-Editing Your Work
An Easy Guide To Improving The Quality Of Your Work.
Editing your work is vital to achieve best results. It is not always easy when you are feeling overwhelmed and tired. These easy steps will help improve your writing.
If you have spent the last few days completing your business plan, article for a woman's magazine, school assignment or updated your resume, you are probably feeling the relief flood in after the last full-stop. Exhausted but satisfied, you still know it is not quite right to call it a wrap. You have to check your work. Though you may still be high on adrenaline, it is highly unlikely that you are enthusiastic to dive right into editing your work.
Here are a few pointers to help you start without feeling overwhelmed.
Take five!
Rule number one is to take a break. Your brain cannot accomodate non-stop work. It has to rest. Indulge in a first milestone victory by drinking a cup of hot coffee or hot cocoa. Take a long shower. Return your calls. Watch a movie. Jump on to your exercise bike. Do something to take your mind of work.
Taking five clears your mind from the entanglements of your said assignment. Napping, or if you have an extra day, calling it a night for the time-being will allow yourself to feel refreshed to tackle the nitty gritty details of your writing.
Print out a hardcopy.
Your project paper is probably in softcopy form. This can cause eye-strain and alot of tension in the back muscles when engaged in self-editing. Print out your work on paper, even if it is long and winding. It will save you alot of strain and aches.
Working on a hardcopy allows you to make corrections with red ink and allows you to check your writing in more comfortable areas of your home and / or office. This will help you take your mind off the stress and allow you to enjoy checking and appreciating your hard work.
Break your work down.
Once you are ready to start editing your work, make sure you break down your project into segments. Depending on the project, you could choose to divide your work into chapters, paragraphs, sub-chapters - it is up to you.
Sometimes it is easy to start with the easier segments, so as they are out of your way before tackling the more taxing ones. You will feel satisfied knowing that there is more done than left undone. After you have completed editing the different sections, piece them together and read through the whole document until you are satisfied with your work.
Read your work backwards.
Reading backwards is a good method to check spelling errors. Errors pop up more obviously when you read words one by one in an incoherrent order.
Read your work outloud - in front of a mirror.
Read you work in an animated fashion to yourself in front of a mirror. The mirror acts as an audience and will help you become conscientious of your delivery. When reading outloud, pause dramtically at commas and semi-colons and raise your eyebrows to yourself when asking rhetorical questions. This will help check your punctuation. If it makes sense to the person in the mirror, it should make sense to your reader.
Be cautious of automated spelling and grammar checks.
Microsoft Word is wonderful to use as its automated spelling and grammar checks are a great tool in spotting mistakes. However, it is wise not to be overly reliant on them as these checks are not able to comprehensively highlight mistakes. For example, your research on the solar system may have come clean sans erorrs, even though you had mis-spelt the word "sun" as "son."
Another example, you may make a simple mistake in a cover letter, like this: My precious work experience included a party-time job at Pizza Hut. Though a party-time job does sound precious, it is important to note that a spell-check would not have prompted you to change "precious" to "previous" and "party-time" to "part-time!"
Ask a friend for help.
However enthusiastic you are about your document, a friendly set of second eyes will help spot any errors. Your friend or colleague will also be able to read your work objectively and may provide you with accurate feedback of a real audience. Constuctive criticism taken positively will help you improve your work dramatically.
