When you begin to edit, you are moving from focusing on your ideas and structure to focusing on the sentences and words in your writing. Now is the time to pay attention to sentence structure and grammar.
✓ Keep a record of the major errors you have made in past papers. Review those error types to ensure that you understand the problems and how to correct them. Apply your knowledge to your current paper.
✓ Work with your sentences until they sound right. If a sentence doesn’t sound right to you, look at the elements of the sentence to find where it can be improved.
✓ Work with a writing coach or tutor. Tutors will not go through your paper line-by-line, but they will answer specific questions and teach you how to spot and correct your own mistakes. To book an appointment with the NWP Writing Support Specialist, visit our tutor booking page.
Commas, Semicolons, and Colons.
Use this tip sheet for help knowing when and how to use commas, semicolons, and colons.
Higher-Order and Lower-Order Concerns
Use this tip sheet to help you know what you should be looking at in each phase of the revision process.
Use this tip sheet for help constructing sentences using parallel structure.
Use this list of prepositions to help you choose the best wording in your writing.
How to Use Articles in Your Writing
Use this tip sheet for help understanding articles and when to use them.
Use this checklist as a guide when you are editing your essay.
There are three stages to revising your writing: revision, editing, and proofreading. Often these stages can be divvied into higher-order and lower-order concerns. The editing stage addresses lower-order concerns, and should be done after the revision stage for this reason.
Watch the video below (The Learning Portal Ontario, 2017) to learn about higher-order and lower-order concerns for revising your essay. The video explains what you should be looking for as you revise, edit, and proofread what you have written. You can also download the Higher-Order and Lower-Order concerns video transcript.
Being concise means communicating as much information as you can in as few words as you can. In other words, make that every sentence counts. This is especially important when you are limited by a word or a page count. One of the keys things to look for when editing for conciseness is whether you are repeating yourself unnecessarily.
Watch the video below (UNC Writing Centre, 2018) for tips on what to watch out for to make sure your writing is concise and avoids repetition.
Unless otherwise stated, the material in this guide is from the Learning Portal created by College Libraries Ontario. Content has been adapted for the NWP Learning Commons in June 2021. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY NC SA 4.0 International License.
All icons on these pages are from The Noun Project. See individual icons for creator attribution.
