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:
Usually you'll want to arrange the editing checklist in decending
order of the seriousness of the error rather than the frequency
of the error.
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.
If you are a Writing Points subscriber, the password
from your most recent e-zine notification will let you access
tracking sheets that allow students enter their editing
checklist items and track how well they are doing at eliminating
those errors. If you aren't a subscriber, you can sign up here
to get a free subscription.
***e-zine-shtml***
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 for the second item on his editing checklist.
That means this time, Sammy looks just for places where he has
omitted a comma after an introductory element.
Since Sammy marked the sentence boundaries already, all he must
do is read the 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 also having a
revision checklist customized to their own to their writing
situation.
