Personalized editing checklist
What to teach so students can use it

The most useful editing checklist is one that is specific to the grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors a student habitually makes. But even a personalized checklist is no value unless a student knows how to use it for editing sentences in his or her own work.

Editing is detail work. Experienced writers may be able to edit a manuscript in one pass. Student writers have to develop that ability by single-error grammar corrections in repeated passes through the manuscript.

Using a single-error correction strategy is much more effective at producing error-free prose than any other grammar exercise students could do.

How the single-error strategy works

Let's say Sammy turned in five papers. Sammy's three most frequent errors were sentence fragments (15 of those in the five papers), a missing comma after introductory element (7 of those), and confusing its and it's (11 of those).

Miss Inky Fingers and Sammy agree that eliminating those three habitual errors will be Sammy's written grammar work for the rest of the year.

It's better for Sammy to eliminate just those three specific habitual errors than to have him do grammar exercises on 37 grammar topics he may never use in his writing.

Sammy's editing checklist for the year looks like this:

• Correct any sentence fragments I have written.

• Correct any sentences I have written that are missing a comma after an introductory element.

• Correct any places where I confused its and it's.

Miss Inky Fingers teaches a one-error-at-a-time strategy for editing sentences so Sammy can each make the grammar corrections indicated on his personal editing checklist and each of his classmates can make the corrections called for on their personal checklists.

Look for error #1 in each sentence

If Sammy is going to eliminate sentence fragments, instead of editing his paper he must edit his sentences, one sentence at a time, focusing just on that single error.

Use color. To make focusing easier, Sammy can highlight every capital letter that begins one of his sentences (or what he hopes is a sentence) and every period that ends one.

Then he can go through the paper examining the words between each pair of boundary markers asking himself, "Is this a whole sentence?"

Edit out errors. When he finds some group that has the boundary markers of a sentence but which is really a non-sentence, he edits it so it becomes a complete sentence.

Look for error #2 in each sentence

If Sammy wants to get rid of his second habitual grammar error, he needs to correct his paper a second time sentence by sentence. This time, Sammy looks just for places where he has omitted a comma after an introductory element.

Since Sammy has the sentence boundaries marked already, all he needs to do is read those sentences to see if there is anything ahead of the independent clause that needs to be separated from it by a comma.

Look for error #3 in each sentence

If Sammy wants to get rid of his third problem, he needs to correct his paper a third time, looking places where he confused its and it's.

Use color. Again, he uses a highlighter — a different color this time — to identify every place where he used either its or it's. Then he looks at every place he highlighted and figures out whether he used the correct form.

While Sammy is correcting for one type of error, if he spots another type of error he should correct it, but he must return to looking just for the type of error he is focusing on. The hardest part of single-error editing is to avoid distractions.

Students who compose on a computer can use find and replace to help them identify their potential problem areas.

Tips for teaching the strategy

Savvy teachers will have students apply the one-thing-at-a-time editing strategy at each stage of the writing process.

If you are teaching the writing process I recommend for thesis + support essays, the first time Sammy or Samantha edits is at the end of the first stage of the process. At that point they have just one sentence — their working thesis — to edit.

The next time they should edit is when they finish their writing skeletons™. At that point, they probably have another three sentences to edit. They will need to edit again at the end of the second stage when they have a complete plan.

By making students edit every time they finish a distinct written product in the writing process, you:

• Make editing seem less formidable.

• Increase the students editing practice by 300 to 400% over editing once after composing.

• Increase students' confidence in their ability to correct their own work.

Simple as this strategy is, the editing checklist works only if students know how to find and correct their errors. You must make sure students know the grammar they need for writing — which is not the grammar they usually need for bubble tests.

If you teach your students to do single-error corrections, their ability to spot errors in their work will gradually improve. Over time they will even be able to compose with fewer errors in the draft.

Students benefit from having a revision checklist as well as an editing checklist. Learn how students can customize their own revision checklists to their writing situation.