Desire Strategies to Improve Your Writing? Part 4: Editing
It’s a beautiful day but it’s time to rake the leaves
Even if you have conceptually produced a wonderful piece of writing without editing, it appears as a yard littered with leaves and debris that cannot be appreciated without some tender loving care.
Editing requires attention to the littlest details in the narrative: punctuation, spelling, grammar, and word choice. There are strategies a writer can implement to help strengthen awareness of and the ability to correct errors. This article demonstrates several strategies that empower writers to refine their writing.
Consistency
Consistency throughout writing must be monitored and adjusted as needed. Each of these articles isolates a skill, defines it, and provides techniques to establish uniformity from the beginning to the end of the narrative to create smooth flow readers can understand and enjoy. Awareness creates fluency.
Point of View
Sentence Construction
Transitions
Tutorials
Writers must be lifelong learners who continually work to improve their craft. I know I still stumble over when to use effect and affect, and that dang Oxford comma is a constant plague. However, there are tutorials that will help writers look professional and polished. Some errors simply can’t be tolerated because they sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Many, numerous, copious amounts of, just a heck of a lot of sources are available to teach basic grammar; read them. Writers are readers who imitate and share. To improve your writing, read others’ words and then read everything you write at least three times.
Bobby Kountz commented on my last article, Desire Strategies to Improve Your Writing? Part 3: Revision.
“For me, it’s all about pearls. I look for what makes sense and meshes with my style. I also look for information supporting my growth edge.”
Identify the sand that grates on your reader’s nerves and use it to polish your writing until the pearls emerge. The following articles address my personal pet peeves. They are offered as a choice for you to decide which will help polish your work. Feel free to bookmark information that may be valuable in the future.
Quotations
Commas
The dreaded there, their, they’re
Apostrophes
Capitalization
This writing series comprises a compilation of articles to support writers. Links are provided below.
Follow Strategies for Writing, a Medium space for writers. A series of posts in a question — answer format support writers with inspiration and responses to those question you’ve always wondered about.
Posts require only 2–4 minutes to read so writers have time to write. Visit often!
Finally, join Medium to stay current on new article by thousands of authors on every topic imaginable and share your own writing. $5 a month.
