Revising and editing are two separate activities. First, you must revise – then you edit. As Bedford elegantly says, “…you wouldn’t
start painting a house until you’ve finished building the walls, hold off on
editing until you’re confident that you’re finished revising.” You revise
first because this is where you, the
writer, looks at over all structure of the document, how you’ve used your
sources, have you gotten your argument across effectively. This is the building of the house, the meat
of the cake. Then you edit. This the
paint, or the icing on the cake. Through the process of editing, you look
for specific sentence and word structure and appropriate usage. Some way to ensure you are editing appropriately
is to check your quotations, spelling, economic use of words (using words concisely
without much “filler”) and of course grammar and punctuation. Checking and getting these technical aspects
of your document correct will give your reader confidence in you as a writer,
in return allow them to trust what you have to say with more credibility.
I never thought that revising happens first, and then
editing. I always sort of lumped them
all in together. However, it makes
perfect sense. Sometimes, I get
carried away in how my paper “sounds” that I forget to give due attention to
what paper is saying, and how effectively it is saying it.
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