Editing Tips

Editing Tips:  Use a list of these tips with students to help them to edit their own and each other's work. 

1.  Watch for places where you have unintentionally repeated words or phrases. Use resources to look for other words you could use.  

2. Substitute more specific words for vague generic words.  Use “Jeep” instead of “car”.  Look for where you can eliminate words like “thing” and substitute a more specific word. 

3. Work to eliminate the verb “to be,” (is, are, was, were) especially in description.  Substitute action verbs.  

4. Look for ways to combine sentences.  For example.  “He does not smoke. He does not drink.”  Or “He is rich.  He is very unhappy.”

5. Streamline transitions—Try to avoid phrases like “Saturday rolled around” or “We could hardly wait for Saturday to roll around.”

7. Try to recast or combine sentences which begin with “There is” or “It is”.  “There are three levels of teams in my school which anyone can try out for.”
8. Eliminate filler phrases such as “I think” or “In my opinion” or “Needless to say” 
9. Vary your sentence length. Look for places where you have a series of choppy sentences and see where they might be combined.  If you have a series of long sentences, consider adding a short punchy sentence to break up the rhythm and catch your reader’s attention. 
10. Look at your paragraphs, and evaluate points of emphasis.  Your best sentence should be the last one in the paragraph.  Put your next best sentence first in the paragraph.  Bury the boring stuff in the middle of paragraphs.  Try to vary paragraph length. If you have a great sentence buried in the middle of your paragraph, try to move it to the end, or consider a paragraph break after that sentence.
11. Use figurative language (similes, metaphors) to make your writing more vivid. “Those sugar-brown Mobile girls…are as sweet and plain as buttercake.”
12. Add participles (ing phrases and ed phrases) to elaborate more on crucial sentences.  “The soldier, gripping the handle of the gun tightly, sweating in the desert heat, feeling utterly lost and alone, pushed his way into the abandoned building.”
13.  Add appositives (naming phrases) to elaborate on your sentences:  “My mother, the woman who once told me that boys were just naturally smarter than girls, now claims that gender played no part in the way she treated my brother and me.”
14.  Add personification through the use of verbs and phrases… “The mountain threatened to engulf us.”
15. Experiment with adjectives out of order.   “Sunday shirts will billow on hangers from the doorjamb, stiffly starched and white.” 
16. Use sensory details; expand beyond what you saw to what you heard, smelled, etc.