Few writing terms are as misunderstood as the term editing.
Although editing chores are often lumped together with revision
in everyday conversation, the two writing terms refer to distinctly
different activities.
Revision is a big-scale project, like remodeling the kitchen. Editing
is more like cleaning house.
Efficient editors do three housekeeping jobs:
-
They toss the junk (simplify).
-
Clean what they are keeping (correct).
-
Arrange items so they show to advantage (format).
When teaching novice writers, it's easiest to teach revision
and editing as separate activities.
Writing terms #1: Simplify
Simplifying writing is largely a matter of finding the most precise
common word that will convey the writer's meaning. Simple writing
is uncluttered writing. It does not keep every adjective it got
for 25¢ at the library yard sale.
Simplifying often includes writing shorter sentences.
When beginning writers are told to supply more details, they stuff
them into their sentences with a string of coordinating conjunctions.
Writing is usually clearer when students break rambling sentences
into shorter ones. Also, it's easier for beginners to spot
errors in the shorter sentences.
Students who write
on a computer have an easy way of finding candidates for shortening.
Writing terms #2: Correct
Students must correct their spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Correcting means fixing things that are wrong rather than fiddling
with things that are OK.
Spelling. Besides ordinary
misspelling, students must correct computerized bad spelling such
as gr8r. My spell checker says that spelling is acceptable,
but a college admission committee may disagree.
Spell-check also won't help with homophones
or typos
that produce correctly spelled — but wrong — words.
We need to see that students memorize the correct use of any of
the sets of confusable terms that give them difficulty. That's
a job that will make you wish for retirement.
Grammar & punctuation.
The G&P errors we and our students need to worry about are
the problem areas
that crop up regularly in student writing. These are a different
list of issues than typically tested
by standardized tests.
It is much easier to get students to correct their own work if
you give them a short
list of specific errors to eliminate from their writing for
your class. Ideally, you should tailor your list to your students
(individually, if possible) rather than grabbing a list from the
web.
Writing terms #3: Format
After students have cleaned up their writing, they need to be sure
it is in the correct format for the assignment.
The format includes the layout, showing the size and placement
of elements such as margins, titles, and paragraphs.
A style guide, like Turabian or MLA, gets into the nitty-gritty
of formatting. It will not only tell details like where to put citations,
but also where to put commas and periods within the citations.
Checklists
for editing apply these writing terms. Similar checklists
for revision put theory into practice.
