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Writing and Editing: What Is the Difference?

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thoughtco.com

Writing and Editing: What Is the Difference?

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Just when you thought you were done writing your paper, you realize you still need to revise and edit. But what does that mean? The two are easy to confuse, but it is important for students to understand the difference. Revision starts once you have a finished first draft of your paper.

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Revising a paper

Revision starts once you have a finished first draft of your paper. As you reread what you have written, you might notice a few places wher...

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Tips for Revision

Give yourself time between writing the first draft and looking at it again for revision. A few hours can give you enough time to se...

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Editing a paper

It happens once you have a draft you are confident in as a whole. In this process, you are going to look for the details that may have slip...

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Things to Look for When Editing

Look for spelling and capitalization errors that your editing software may have missed.
Punctuation can make a big impact o...

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How to Edit Your Own Writing

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nytimes.com

Writing is hard, but don't overlook the difficulty - and the importance - of editing your own work before letting others see it. Here's how. The secret to good writing is good editing. It's what separates hastily written, randomly punctuated, incoherent rants from learned polemics and op-eds, and cringe-worthy fan fiction from a critically acclaimed novel.

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The first draft

The first words you write are the first draft. Writing is thinking. You'll rarely know what exactly you want to say when you start writing.

The time you put into editing, reworking and re...

Common errors

Most writing mistakes are widespread, but good writers just get better at spotting them. Some things you'll learn to watch for are:

Overuse of jargon and business-speak, like "utilize" or "endeavor" instead of "use" or "try."
Clichés are stale phrases that have lost their impact and novelty through overuse. If you are used to seeing it in print, don't use it.
The passive voice. The subject of the sentence should be the person or thing taking action, not the thing being acted on. "Harry wrote this article," is better than "This article was written by Harry."
Rambling. When you are not sure what you want to say, it is easy to phrase it in three or four different ways. A single concise sentence is generally better.

Give it some space

When you write something, you get very close to it. It is nearly impossible to distance yourself from it straight away to edit properly.

The longer you can leave a draft before editing, the better. Half an hour to two days is enough of a break to edit well. When you do edit, read your work out loud. You'll catch more problems and get a better feel for how everything flows.

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Writing Is Thinking

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alistapart.com

When you write about your work, it makes all of us smarter for the effort, including you. Done well, this kind of sharing means you're contributing signal, instead of noise. But writers are made, not born. We often hear from people who say they'd love to write for A List Apart or start blogging, but don't know where to start.

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Writing is intimidating. There’s this expectation of artful precision, mercurial grammatical rules, and the weird angst that comes with writing for other people. You start with a tidy nu...

Writing is Deliberate

Choosing the words to describe your work means you’re doing it on purpose.

You’re going on the record as someone who thinks about why they do what they do, and understands how each decision affects the results. And developing this knack for critical thinking will also make you better at what you do.

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10 Simple Ways to Improve Your Business Writing Skills

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moneycrashers.com

Stop and think about how many emails you write each day at work. According to a study conducted by Carleton University, professionals spend one-third of their time at work reading and answering emails. You might spend more than this, or less, but chances are, a significant portion of your day is spent writing something.

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The value of solid writing skills

Being a good writer helps you stand out from the crowd.
Repeated writing mistakes affect your reputation and credibility in the future.
Your writing is ...

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Kurt Vonnegut

"Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing.”

The “5 Ws + H” method

... for establishing what and how you will write:

Who: Who is my audience?
What: What do they need to know?
When: When does this apply, when did this happen, or when do they need to know it by?
Where: Where is this happening?
Why: Why do they need this information?
How: How should they use this information?

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