Editing Tips for Essay Writing

You should never submit the first draft of your essay, as it will always require editing! It can often be a good idea to hire professional editing services to support you in this. If you can’t access any professional editing services, then read the tips below to learn about editing your own work. Editors within companies that provide an editing services are normally professionally qualified individuals

1. Review the structure

The best practice for editing and proofreading an essay is to step away from the document for a day or two. If you begin the editing process as soon as you finish your first draft, you will be too close to the text and will miss obvious errors. Giving yourself time away will refresh your eyes and allow you to assess your work.

The first thing to do when you come back to your essay is to check the overall structure. Ensure the essay outlines the argument, follows, and develops the argument, before coming to a well-explained conclusion. Review the order of your paragraphs, would reorganising any areas better support your argument? Could you develop a point further by placing it differently in your essay?

2. Prioritise conciseness

Long sentences and paragraphs are laborious to read, they can be difficult to follow or just plain boring. A block of text can be intimidating to the reader, so start a new paragraph if you find you are writing more than three or four sentences. It is also common practice to leave a space between paragraphs to avoid a wall of text.

For sentences, try to keep them to a maximum of two or three segments or clauses. Long sentences are usually too wordy or repetitive. Review your sentences and look for areas where you can be ruthless with your choice of words. Your reader will thank you for being concise!

3. Check for complicated language

Sometimes long, complicated words can make you look very intelligent, and sometimes they make it look like you are trying too hard. There is a fine balance between diversifying your vocabulary and overcomplicating it. You should aim to use clear and concise language that will communicate your message to the reader.

4. Look out for repetition

When writing your essay, it is easy to repeat yourself as you explain and link your argument together. This is why the editing process is so important, as it provides an opportunity to take stock of repeated words and ideas and remove those that don’t add to the overall essay.

Whilst you are checking for repeated ideas, it is good practice to check for ideas you may have overexplained. If you dwell upon a point for too long it weakens the impact of the idea, as it looks as if you are struggling to support your overall argument. A clear and simple sentence that outlines the evidence is often all you need. If you are still unsure its worth contacting several editing services companies and ask a few pertinent questions.

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