Whether it is a blog, article, case study or profile, a finely written content can make a significant impact on the readers. While writing can turn your views into words, good editing can turn your content into a constructive weapon to stay ahead of your peers. Editing is one of the crucial factors of the writing process. Keenly scrutinizing the content, detecting possible errors and making necessary changes, editing process helps you fine-tune your content once and for all.
If you are writing for a brand, then it becomes essential to pay more attention to your editing tactics. Use the right set of tools while writing the content in order to minimize the chances of mistakes. From ascertaining the word count to checking the uniqueness of the content, there is a tool for every task.
While writing an interactive and interesting blog is important, good editing is the justice you can do to your blog. Let’s learn some new ways to approach your content and edit it the right way.
Read It Out Loud
One of the basic tips to detect mistakes at an early stage is to read your content out loud. Reading out loud helps your brain register every sentence and identify the possible errors.
Remove Uncertain Language
In order to sound believable and authorities in your content, it is vital to avoid wishy-washy sentences. If you use phrases like “seems to be” or “could be a reason for,” you sound indecisive, and it weakens your message.
Avoid Repetitive Phrases
Try not to rely on certain words or phrases to make your point; readers will notice when you repeat yourself. Aim for variety. Use a word frequency counter to find repetitive words and scan a thesaurus to find alternatives.
Use Grammarly to Find Mistakes
The Grammarly proofreading tool looks at spelling and grammar mistakes and checks more than 250 advanced rules to find mistakes such as double negatives, run-on sentences, and dangling modifiers. After you’ve used Grammarly a few times, you’ll start to see common weaknesses in your writing.
Read Your Writing in a New Format
If you typed it, print it out. Alternatively, convert your Word document to PDF format, or change your text to a different font, color, and size. These techniques will help you see your content from an “outsider’s” perspective and give you a more critical eye.
Take a Break
Let your writing rest for a few hours or overnight. Putting a literal distance between you and your work also creates an emotional distance. When you return to it, you’re more likely to spot awkward phrases and obvious mistakes.
Replace stuffy words with simple ones
Some people think jargon makes their writing sound smart, but you know better. Good writing does not confuse readers. If they need to grab a dictionary to finish a sentence, your writing has room for improvement. To get your point across, use words people are familiar with.
Editing is a fine line that distinguishes a finely written content from a pristine one. The above-mentioned tips will certainly help you fine-tune your editing skills and offer some innovative ideas to approach your content.