Tips From an Editor on Self-Editing
Before hitting “post” on that article, social media, or website update, consider these few quick editing tips that a paid editor would look for.
1. The obvious: Spelling
Always do one last look over your writing to make sure you didn’t miss any spelling errors. It can be easy to confuse two different spellings of a word, so a last read through is essential. If you’re not sure on a word, take to Google, or even copy and paste into an application that will identify spelling and grammar errors like Microsoft Word.
2. Check that all tenses are consistent
In the English language, there are three major tenses: past, present, and future. Though, there are actually many more when broken down into perfect, simple, etc. In general, you want to be sure that your writing is all consistent in the tense you use. That might seem simple, but it can be easy to accidentally switch from present tense into past tense, especially in story-telling (versus blog/non-fiction).
3. Avoid widows, orphans, and runts
That’s not as morbid as it sounds. “Widow” refers to the last sentence of a paragraph bleeding into the next page on its own, separated from the rest of the paragraph. “Orphan” refers to the first sentence of a paragraph separated from the rest of the section on the next page. And of course, “runt” refers to the last word of a paragraph that is on its own line. While in book writing this does not matter as much, for marketing material, it is recommended to avoid these in order to make more visually appealing.
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