Writing an essay is a continuous process for most students. Most students often opt to have a professional go through their essays. However, it is a simple task; you can perform independently. This article offers a few tips that describe how to self-edit your essay. Furthermore, we provide tips and tricks on how to complete the process with ease and professionalism.
What You Need to Know About Editing an Essay
It is an easy thing to edit. The question is how to do it? Editing an essay means taking the structure of your essay and making sure everything flows smoothly. Editing is another part of the process from a writer’s perspective.
Editing involves checking out spellings, jargon, typos, vague statements, grammar mistakes, and other related issues. In addition, there are several things related to your editing.
You need to ensure that each sentence has a proper structure. Therefore, your audience can understand what you are trying to say. Also, when writing an essay, it is essential to use different punctuation marks such as commas and periods.
Another thing needed when editing your essays is to ensure no grammatical errors in your writing. Grammatical errors can make your essay unreadable. Hence, ensure that your proofread essay features proper grammar before submitting them.
Editing vs. Rewriting vs. Proofreading
A continuous debate is the difference between editing, rewriting, and proofreading. Editing an essay is a chance to showcase your skill set. You can do essay editing in many different ways. You can edit and change your essay add or delete paragraphs, sentences, and words.
There are different kinds of editing for different situations. Some people choose to rewrite their essays by themselves. Others prefer to hire an essay editing service specializing in editing. Here is a breakdown of the differences that exist:
Editing
This type involves changing parts or all of your essay without introducing any new information into it at all! The main benefit here is that this type of editing is beneficial if you are writing a very long essay or have worked on it for a great deal of time.
Rewriting
Rewriting is the most common method of editing. It involves changing some parts of your writing while keeping the majority of the original text intact. Rewriting is usually done by someone who does not know the topic. Therefore, they can introduce new ideas that do not fit into what has been written previously.
The main benefit of rewriting your essay edit is that it helps improve the overall quality of your paper. This is done by eliminating any errors or inconsistencies present before. It also ensures that all changes made during this process are well documented. Hence, future readers will understand why certain things were changed and how this affected their understanding/perception of what was read beforehand.
Proofreading
This type of editing involves looking at your essay and finding all of the mistakes you have made. It is afterward, correcting them. Proofreading can help with things like grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Moreover, it can also help with your sentence structure.
You will need to be sure to use an editing program to edit both in MS Word and on paper. The process will ensure that everything is correct before printing it out. You do not want to waste any valuable time when it comes to getting your essay done.
Always consider hiring someone else to do the work for you when unsure about an editing program. Several people specialize in this type of work.
Essential Factors to Consider When Editing
Master standard grammar rules when learning to be a copy editor. Afterward, practice editing sentences and paragraphs until you're comfortable identifying and correcting errors. Some specific factors include the following:
Grammar.
Your vocabulary will help you understand grammar rules. However, you also need to learn about sentence structure and sentence components. This includes
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Subjects
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Verbs
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Prepositions
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Direct objects
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Indirect objects.
Clarity.
Mastering correct grammar does not mean an essay edit is complete. It is equally important to make sure sentences are clear. Therefore, readers understand what you are trying to convey. You should read every sentence out loud to make sure it makes sense. Also, ensure all the words work together efficiently for readers to understand.
Wordiness.
Look for words or phrases that elongate without adding substance to the writing—also, shorter words or alternatives which your readers can understand easily. Suppose you can say something in fewer words without compromising your message or removing critical information. Always trim your writing when saying something in a few words without compromising your message. It helps make it more readable and engaging.
Punctuation mistakes
Double or no spaces around your commas and periods. Also, use hyphens instead of underscores in places like adjectives and adverbs. Moreover, do not forget the quotes you use in your citations and quotations. This will keep your writing from being distracting or confusing.
Formatting mistakes
Do not use hard returns in your paragraph indentations. Look at how other people do it on websites that use WordPress.org as a base when unsure about the indentation of paragraphs.
Spelling mistakes
Proofread for typos or misspellings you make by mistake — even when something familiar, like "to" instead of "too." It could be an easy fix if you fix it before publishing your post altogether.
Jargon
Jargon is the specialized technical vocabulary used for a specific activity or industry. Like, say, medicine or baseball. It helps hammer home your point and show off your knowledge.
However, too much jargon will confuse your reader and make them work harder to understand what you are talking about. It is also not a great idea when writing for a general audience who might not be familiar with the terms you use.
Top Free Tools to Help Self-Editing Your Essay
There are several free self-editing tools to help in your essay writing process. Here is a look at the essay editing checklist for some top free editing tools:
Grammarly
This app is a free tool that helps students check their writing for grammatical errors. It also offers spelling, punctuation, and readability suggestions. It works seamlessly with different browsers. Students can use the software to review their essays and ensure they are free from common errors.
Studyist
The app is a free service that helps students find the best study resources online. It covers a wide range of topics and includes quizzes, flashcards, videos, games, and more. It also offers essay examples with tips on how to write an essay on your own. Users can read articles written by other students, rate them, and share their thoughts using Studyist's commenting system.
Asana
Asana is project management software that helps students organize their work and stay on top of deadlines. It allows users to create tasks, set due dates, add attachments, and manage projects with multiple team members or groups. You can also set reminders in Asana to keep track of upcoming assignments.
ProWritingAid
The app is an online grammar checker that helps proofread the essay and uplifts your specific style and tone. It offers 20 styles and helps identify overused words and phrases. In addition, the tool edits articles by catching instances of repetition and redundancy. A readability score showcases the difficulty or easiness of reading your essay.
Ginger
Ginger is another proofreading tool that works like a human editor would. It helps you correct:
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Grammar
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Spelling
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Punctuation
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Sentence structure
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Word choice
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Style, and more.
Like ProWritingAid, Ginger can help improve your writing style by identifying overused words and phrases. It also offers some helpful tips on writing sentences in ways that help make them more accessible for readers to understand.
Important Edit Essay Tips
You will want to look for a few different things when editing your work. Here are some essential editing tips for your essay:
Plan ahead
It is essential to plan. Planning helps get your writing done faster. This is even when writing a small amount of text. It is still better to have something written than nothing at all. This way, you can start with some ideas and then expand on them later.
Fill in the gaps
Put extra care with grammar and spelling errors when editing. You can correct one mistake. However, it becomes hard to fix with several mistakes appearing. It might seem like a big job now. But it will be much easier than it looks now when you get started.
Perform a grammar check
Poor grammar use can break the strength of your essay despite a strong and convincing argument. You also need to use different sentences to make sense and sound natural. This is important because when people read your essay, they will notice these errors and think it was poorly written or not very interesting.
Outline and re-organize
It is always best to create an outline before starting any writing piece. This helps in sensibly organizing your thoughts for your audience. However, you can constantly re-organize different parts of the essay to enhance it further.
Vary sentence lengths and structures.
One of the standard ways to increase your writing quality is varying sentence length. Suppose all of your sentences feature approximately the same length. It can become monotonous for readers when all your sentences are approximately the same length. Varying sentence lengths and structures can help add interest to what you're saying.
Use active voice.
Try to use an active voice whenever possible in your writing. It eases the understanding level for your audience. It also improves clarity and reduces wordiness.
Use transitions
Transition words are like signposts that help the reader follow along as you develop your point. Using them makes your writing easy to read because it allows readers to see how each new sentence or paragraph fits into your argument as a whole.
Cut words as much as possible.
One of the last things needed when editing is cutting down on how many words appear in each sentence. This is without changing the overall meaning of what you are writing. It is essential not to be overly wordy in writing essays. This is because it can detract from what you want to say without adding anything else useful.
Final Takeaway
The best way to avoid grammar and spelling mistakes is to let another look over your work before you publish or submit it. Even so, always proofread your writing. No matter who looks over or edits your work, there is always the possibility of making a mistake that they may not catch. There are plenty of sites that offer sentence structure checks, such as Grammarly. Moreover, several sites are out there that specialize in editing your essays for free.