Editing, revising and proofreading your work is an integral part of writing.
Putting your best work forward by learning and using basic techniques of mechanics, editing and proofreading will
Improve reader's understanding
Enhance reader's trust in your story
Add more tools to your writer's toolbox
Spelling: Common Words that Sound Alike
It's easy to misuse words that sound like other words, such as "you're vs your" and "their vs. there vs. they're." Many words sound alike but mean different things when put into writing. This list will help you distinguish between some of the more common words that sound alike.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/spelling_common_words_that_sound_alike.html
Don't trust your spell-check app to find and correct such mistakes. The app will think all variants are correct. The wrong word will be correctly spelled, but your reader will respect you less.
Capitalization
A quick review of when to capitalize words.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/help_with_capitals.html
Adverbs and Adjectives
The more words in a sentence, the harder it is for your reader to understand. Often sentences become longer because we've loaded them with adjectives to modify nouns and adverbs to modify verbs.
Consider reducing the use of modifiers by using nouns and verbs that carry more meaning with them.
As you review your draft, consider eliminating modifiers and instead finding better nouns and verbs that express what you want to say. Look for these more meaningful words in a thesaurus or on thesaurus.com
Write clearly and plainly to best reach your readers. Each sentence should contain a single idea that you want your readers to know. If you have too many ideas stuffed into a sentence, it'll be hard to understand.
Break complicated compound sentences into smaller simpler sentences that each contain a single idea.
Restructure your sentences for simplicity.
The noun-verb-object sentence structure
The simplest, and thus easiest to understand, sentence structure is composed of noun-verb-object. This tells the reader "Who did What to Whom?" For example, "Bob hit the ball" follows this basic structure. So does the sentence "The noun-verb-object sentence structure is the simplest and easiest for the reader to understand." (Better, right?)
This sentence structure is also called the Active Voice: In an active voice sentence, the subject is performing the action of the verb. This places more emphasis on who/what is completing the action. Under rare circumstances, you may want to use the passive voice to shift the emphasis onto the object and de-emphasize the person completing the action. For example, "the ball was hit by Bob" is passive.
Save time by writing your first draft with simple sentences. Once the basic sentence is on the page, you can always complicate it purposefully to produce certain effects.
Start from the core of the sentence, the Subject-Verb-Object part, and then build out from there.
(Easier said than done! I write whatever I can in the first draft, and then clarify my sentences when they're too disorganized).
Clarifying poorly written sentences
You can clarify any sentence by rewriting it into the Subject-Verb-Object pattern. Organize the relevant information into the template below to figure out which subject is doing the action.
Subject (Who is doing the action?) : _____________________________________________________
Verb (what is the action?) : ___________________________________________________________
Direct Object (what is changed by the action?) : ______________________________________________________
Sentences can have more than one clause of course. There's always a Main Clause that contains the main action and one or more subordinate clauses.
Be careful about the placement of subordinate clauses
Avoid interrupting the main clause with a subordinate clause if the interruption will cause confusion. Here's an example that is unclear and confusing (because the subordinate clause in the middle interrupts the main clause):
"Industrial spying, because of the growing use of computers to store and process corporate information, is increasing rapidly."
The following example is clear (subordinate clause at the end):
"Industrial spying is increasing rapidly because of the growing use of computers to store and process corporate information."
You could also put the subordinate clause at the beginning, and this example is just as clear:
"Because of the growing use of computers to store and process corporate information, industrial spying is increasing rapidly."
Sentence Length
Sentence length controls the flow of information to your reader. Short sentences pack punch; medium sentences are standard; long sentences go on and on, and risk becoming 'run-on' sentences. Vary sentence length to hold your audience's attention.
Broadcast sentences are typically shorter than those written for print.
Short: 4-8 words
Medium:9-20 words
Long: 21+ words
The Apostrophe
Misuse of the apostrophe is one of the most common mistakes. The apostrophe has three uses:
To form possessives of nouns (Thor's hammer)
To show the omission of letters (Thor's a buff dude)
To indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters (James's hammer isn't quite so cool)
In addition, people often make mistakes with the exception of its and it's.
Its is the possessive form (Thor's hammer has lost its power)
It's is a contraction that shows the omission of the letter i in the phrase "it is" (It's a pity that Thor doesn't have his hammer).
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/apostrophe_introduction.html
Proofread separately from writing. You need all your concentration.
Proofread on paper, you can mark up your mistakes and check off the revisions as you make them afterwards.
Allow enough time for proofreading. The night before submission is not a good time.
Don't trust spell-check. It's not smart enough to recognize mechanics errors. Your mistakes will be spelled perfectly ;-)
Use the dictionary too