To "edit" a piece of writing means simply to change and correct its contents for the mutual benefit of its writer and readers. Although all writers edit during the writing process, to focus unnecessarily on mechanical error and grammatical convention early in the writing process is to misdirect your energies. Worrying about error at the early stages of the process can have two very negative impacts on your work: one, doing so could cause you to dismiss embryonic ideas that could have become, with work, fully formed and articulated; and two, doing so could cause you to obsess about error in sections or sentences of a draft that may never reach the finished version.
So before you undertake the task of editing your work, you should first take into consideration the lessons of the course and the feedback of your instructor and peers, making all necessary major revisions (those dealing with the focus, organization, and content of the paper). Then--and only then--should you deal with any sentence-level problems and revisions. Allow yourself time for revising once to improve the "cues for readers," which are crucial to the success of longer pieces of writing; then you can focus on proofreading, or editing to correct errors.
You've probably been finding and correcting some mechanical errors during the early stages of the writing process. But only when you are content with the focus, organization, and content of an essay should you undertake the task of correcting any remaining mechanical errors. You need to have at least some sense of your own patterns of error, your own tendencies in writing, and you need to be willing to address those particular problems (for instance, what errors have your current and former instructors or tutors spotted in your work?). But the following types of errors, in descending order of occurrence and importance, are usually most prevalent in student writing at this level.
- Incorrect quotation, paraphrase, or documentation
- Awkward or confusing sentences
- Run-ons, comma splices, or sentence fragments
- Lack of subject-verb agreement
- Vague or faulty pronoun reference
- Mis- (or missing) punctuation
- Misspelling--especially of names, titles, concepts, etc.
- Misuse of conventions, e.g. titles, quotations, citations, etc.
To identify and deal with these types of errors, try the following. First, read the entire essay out loud (or better yet, have a friend read it out loud to you), dramatically, with the appropriate pauses to indicate punctuation. This should alert you to any "awkward" sentence constructions or lapses in coherence (number two above).
Second, read the essay "backwards," sentence-by-sentence (that is, last sentence first, second-to-last sentence second, etc.): this should isolate any sentence errors (numbers three through six above) and make them more noticeable.
Third, read the paper backwards word-by-word (that is, last word first, second-to-last word second, etc.): this may be time-consuming but it will isolate and make more noticeable any errors in typing, spelling, or convention (numbers seven and eight above).
how to address these errors
1) Incorrect quotation, paraphrase, or documentation
No advice serves so well as to be fussy with the language, even more so with other people's words and ideas than you are with your own. Problems--even ones you might consider minor ones--with the use of sources can reduce a piece of successful writing to a failing example of plagiarism. So if doubt exists about your use of a source, it is best to take the time to double-check and eliminate any possible confusion. A trip to the library will not seem like too much work if it is weighed against a possible charge of plagiarism or failure of the course.
2) Awkward or confusing sentences
3) Run-ons, comma splices, or sentence fragments
4) Lack of subject-verb agreement
5) Vague or faulty pronoun reference
If any of these errors crops up and creates confusion for readers, you have to be willing to recast the sentence in a more effective form. Begin by separating your ideas, drafting a short sentence that presents the gist of your thought with a clear subject and verb, then adding the necessary additional information.
6) Mis- (or missing) punctuation
If you know how to use a comma to add information to a sentence, you're in good shape. Other rules for punctuating with colons, quotation marks, semicolons, and commas--including using them to list or rename information--are available from the Writing Center.
7) Misspelling--especially of names, titles, concepts, etc.
The easy rules here are as follows: Double-check what you're unsure of. Always double-check titles, names, and concepts. And always spell-check your work (but when you are uncomfortable with a spell-checker's substitution, use a good dictionary to look up the options). If you are a "creative speller" or "chronic misspeller," it works best to keep a log or journal of misspellings and their corrections.
8) Misuse of conventions, e.g. titles, quotations, citations, etc.
Titles of books and periodicals are underlined; titles of articles are enclosed in quotation marks. APA and MLA format have different tules for placing and punctuating parenthetical citations, as they do for capitalizing titles of articles, so you need--again--to be willing to consult the Pocket Guide.
a final note:
The above strategies will help isolate, identify, and correct errors. But these strategies are no substitute for reading often and well, familiarizing yourself with the possibilities and conventions of the language, and developing your abilities as a writer and thinker by consistently learning new strategies, forms, and patterns of thought.