An editing checklist: how to self-edit in five passes
Trying to fix everything at once means fixing little. Editing in separate passes, from the big picture down to commas, catches far more and takes less effort.
A first draft is for getting ideas onto the page. Editing is for the reader. The two jobs need different frames of mind, which is why the best single piece of advice about editing is to separate it from writing, and then to break editing itself into passes.
If you try to fix structure, word choice, and commas in one read, your attention splits. You polish a sentence in a paragraph that should be cut. You miss a typo while rethinking an argument. Working from large to small avoids that waste: there is no point perfecting the wording of a section you are about to delete.
Before you start: take a break
Writers read what they meant, not what they wrote. Time breaks that spell. Even an hour away helps; a night is better for anything important. If you cannot wait, change the format: print the draft, change the font, or read it on a different device. A fresh look reveals problems a familiar one hides.
Pass 1: Structure
Read the whole piece quickly without stopping to fix sentences. Ask:
- What is the main point? Can you state it in one sentence? Is it near the top? (See put the main point first.)
- Who is the reader, and what do they need? Does the draft answer their question?
- Is the order right? Would the reader follow it more easily if two sections swapped?
- Is anything missing? A step, a deadline, a definition?
- Is anything extra? Background the reader does not need, a tangent, a section that repeats another?
Make the big moves now: reorder, cut, add. This pass often removes more words than all the others combined.
Pass 2: Paragraphs
Now go section by section.
- Does each paragraph have one job?
- Does its first sentence say what that job is?
- Are any paragraphs very long? On screen, long blocks of text discourage reading. Split at a change of topic. (See paragraph length.)
- Do paragraphs connect? A reader should not have to guess why one follows another.
- Would a list or table present this better than prose?
Pass 3: Sentences
This is where a tool helps most. Paste the draft into the Op-Ed Insight editor and look at what it highlights.
- Long sentences. The editor flags sentences of 25 words or more as long and 35 or more as very long. For each one, ask whether it carries more than one idea. See how to write shorter sentences.
- Passive voice. Ask whether the reader needs to know who acted. If so, make it active. If not, the passive may be fine. The detector is a heuristic and will flag some adjectives, so check each one. See when to use passive voice.
- Subject and verb far apart. If ten words separate them, the reader is waiting. Move the material in between.
- Rhythm. Do several sentences in a row have the same length or the same opening? Vary them.
Tip: Treat every highlight as a question, not a command. A tool counts words and matches patterns. It cannot tell whether a long sentence is long for a good reason. You can.
Pass 4: Words
Go through again, this time looking at word choice.
- Wordy phrases: “in order to”, “due to the fact that”, “at this point in time”. See words to cut.
- Nominalizations: “make a decision”, “conduct a review”. Restore the verb. See nominalizations.
- Hedges and intensifiers: “perhaps”, “might possibly”, “very”, “really”. Keep the ones that reflect real uncertainty or real emphasis. See hedges and weasel words.
- Clichés and jargon: replace with the specific thing you mean. See avoiding clichés.
- Repeated words: the same noticeable word twice in nearby sentences. See repeated words.
- Formal words with plain equivalents: “utilize”, “commence”, “prior to”.
Before: In order to make a decision at this point in time, we will need to conduct a very thorough review of the data.
After: To decide now, we need to review the data closely.
Pass 5: Mechanics
Last, check the surface: spelling, punctuation, grammar, numbers, names, and formatting.
- Names of people and organizations spelled correctly.
- Dates, times, and figures accurate and consistent.
- Links working and pointing where they should.
- Headings in a consistent case. (See title case vs. sentence case.)
- Numbers styled consistently. (See numbers in writing.)
- No doubled words (“the the”), which the eye skips easily.
Spelling checkers miss correctly spelled wrong words: “form” for “from”, “manger” for “manager”, “their” for “there”. Read slowly for these.
Read it aloud
Reading aloud is the most reliable editing technique there is, and the easiest to skip. Your ear catches what your eye passes over: a sentence too long to say in one breath, a repeated word, a clumsy rhythm, a missing word. If you stumble, the reader will too.
If reading aloud is not practical, many devices have a text-to-speech feature. Listening to your draft in another voice is a good substitute.
Check the numbers, then ignore them
Readability scores and word counts are useful signals. A sudden jump in grade level points to a dense paragraph. A word count far above the limit tells you to cut. But a score is a measure of sentence and word length, not of clarity. Use the readability checker to find problem areas, then judge them yourself. See what readability score to aim for.
The short version
When time is tight, do at least these:
- Is the main point in the first two sentences?
- Can any section, paragraph, or sentence be cut without loss?
- Are the flagged long sentences long for a reason?
- Read it aloud once.
- Check names, numbers, and dates.
Five minutes spent this way improves most drafts more than an hour of polishing the same sentence.
Try it on your own text
Scores
- Flesch Reading Ease–
Counts used
Hardest sentences
- Paste a few sentences to see which are hardest.