How to Look at Your Writing With a Critical Eye

You can be your own editor.

If you do not want to invest in a professional editor, you will need to edit your own writing. People often worry that they have too much bias to edit their own work, but this isn't the case. To look at your writing with a critical eye, instead of reading like the writer, you read your writing as a reader would, and then edit based on content and style. The following steps will help you do this.

Instructions

1. Before you edit or even read your work, you need to set it aside for some amount of time so you can look at it with fresh eyes when you come back to it. For novelists, this may mean setting it aside for three months. For someone writing a cover letter or a business letter, this may mean an hour. Give yourself whatever time it takes to become less familiar with the content so that you can read it as though you're seeing it for the first time.

2. Print out what you've written. Having the hard copy will help you read as a reader rather than a writer, and errors can often be more easily spotted in print than on the screen. A hard copy makes it easy to make edits and write notes in the margins.

3. Identify your intended audience before you begin reading or editing. Write this down. It may be a word or a whole sentence at the top of your first page. Then ask yourself how much background knowledge you expect your readers to have on your topic. Will they likely be encountering the topic for the first time? If you are writing in a business context, your audience might be your boss or supervisor, but consider other readers that person might send a copy to. Make another note at the top of your page as to how much background knowledge your audience has, and keep this in mind as you read and edit.

4. Write down on a separate sheet of paper questions the reader will ask. Good ones for creative writing pieces are, "Why am I reading this?", "Do I want to keep reading?", and "Is this piece going to have a good ending?". If it's business writing, a good question is, "What am I being asked to do?" As you read and edit, you'll want to ensure these questions are answered. For any type of writing, it's important to ask, "What is going on?" or "What is this about?". If you can answer this question not as the writer but by reading your piece with fresh eyes, you know the writing makes sense and your readers will follow what you're saying. If you're not happy with your answers by the end of reading the work, you'll need to edit your writing accordingly. Make sure the readers' questions are answered in a logical order. Give your reader the background information she needs for immediate understanding. If a reader suddenly reads about an unfamiliar person or idea in the text, she will probably look back through the piece to see if she missed something. She may not continue reading if she realizes she cannot find it.

5. Check your spelling and grammar. Spell checks on word processors do not catch words that are spelled right but used incorrectly. For example, you may have typed "you will loose everything" when you meant to say "you will lose everything." You need to look at every word and use a dictionary or grammar and style resource if necessary as you edit.

6. Make your writing more succinct by taking out unnecessary words, sentences, and paragraphs. If there's a shorter, more concise way to say something, say it that way, unless it's part of a fictional character's dialogue. Delete non-specific words like "seems to" and "almost." Surplus words and filler sentences only reduce the value of your important words and distract your reader from your main ideas.

7. Read your writing aloud. This helps make sure it flows well, both in terms of the content being in logical order, and your writing grammar use and style sounding natural. It also helps catch run-on sentences and word redundancy, which are harder to catch when reading.

Tips & Warnings

• Read your writing verbatim. This takes self-discipline but is imperative in the critical editing process. We cannot trust computer spell checkers.

References

• How To Edit Your Own Writing (Self-Editing): Self-Editing Checklist