After revising, editing makes every sentence correct: grammar, punctuation, spelling and format. You know the rules from Usage and Mechanics, such as Five Ways to Fix a Run-On. The challenge is seeing your own errors.
Key idea
Edit for grammar, punctuation, spelling and format, one kind of error at a time. Read slowly and aloud, or on paper, so you see what you wrote and not what you meant.
Why it works
Your brain knows what you meant to write, so it fills in missing words and fixes typos as you read your own work at normal speed. Slowing down, reading aloud, or changing how the page looks breaks that habit and lets the real words through.
- Read aloud, slowly, pointing at each word.
- Print it, or change the font or size, so it looks new.
- Make one pass for each kind of error you tend to make.
- Read the last sentence first, then the one before it, to check sentences one at a time.
- Use spell check, then check what it can’t catch: their/there, its/it’s, a missing word.
Worked example: What spell check misses
Spell check found nothing wrong in “Its time to feed the dog it’s dinner.” Find the errors.
- “Its time” means “it is time”: it’s.
- “it’s dinner” means “its dinner,” the dog’s dinner: its.
- Both words are real words, so spell check can’t tell.
Answer: “It’s time to feed the dog its dinner.”
Worked example: The missing word
Find the error: “We went to the the library after school.”
- Read it aloud, one word at a time.
- The word “the” appears twice; at reading speed, eyes skip the repeat.
Answer: “We went to the library after school.”
Common mistake
Proofreading on screen at reading speed, so your eyes fill in what you meant to write. Check by changing how you read: aloud, on paper, or backward sentence by sentence.