7 Tips for Editing to Improve Usage
How do you make sure you’re writing right? Crafting prose is mostly a matter of using the right words for the job. Here are some steps to help you achieve that goal.
1. Look up the definition of an unfamiliar word and be sure you understand the meaning before you use it.
It’s easy to deploy a word you’ve just read or heard, mistakenly believing you understand its definition or its connotation, only to confuse or accidentally mislead your readers. Always double-check a term you’ve never used before. (Consider doing the same with words you’ve used before and think you know.)
2. Search a thesaurus or a synonym finder for the precise meaning, taking care to notice the different connotations of similar words.
Flag stock words and phrases, and thumb or click through a print or online resource to select a more exact or accurate synonym. But be alert to seemingly similar words with distinct senses.
3. Keep your writing clear and coherent, and avoid pretentious or overly formal language.
Write to communicate, not to impress. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t dumb down, but don’t let your writing get in the way of your message. There’s a fine line between elegance and pomposity.
4. Select the strongest nouns and verbs before you select adjectives and adverbs.
Words that modify nouns and verbs can enhance clarity of thought and vividness of imagery, but if they upstage the words they’re supposed to support, strengthen the actor and action words. When you do so, an adjective or adverb may no longer be necessary.
5. Seek opportunities to use repetition for rhetorical effect while, at the same time, you watch for careless redundancy.
Take care that you don’t repeat yourself unless you do so to emphasize your point.
6. Read your draft aloud to help you refine grammar and usage. If something doesn’t sound right to you, it probably doesn’t read right to your audience, either.
Recitation of your writing is time consuming, but that’s how you find the awkward wording or phrasing you didn’t stumble over in your silent review.
7. Ask someone else to read your writing and critique it.
People you draft to read your draft need not offer solutions to problems of grammar, usage, organization, and logic; they can simply highlight problematic words, phrases, sentences, and passages, and offer more detail if necessary while leaving the problem solving to you.
This last step isn’t practical for every writing task or assignment, but if a piece of prose is important enough to you, and you have a reliable, word-savvy person on hand, ask to borrow their eyes and the brain attached to them. (You, of course, will reciprocate when called on.)
Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily!
Keep learning! Browse the Writing Basics category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:
Stop making those embarrassing mistakes! Subscribe to Daily Writing Tips today!
- You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed!
- Subscribers get access to our archives with 800+ interactive exercises!
- You'll also get three bonus ebooks completely free!