Editing An Essay: Five Pitfalls To Stay Away From

The final job you will perform before handing in an essay is the editing. Some people may think this is a very easy task, but it isn’t. If you make mistakes in the editing you will end up making a fool of yourself. Authors will overlook certain mistakes; a few are minor and some are essay killers. There are several pitfalls you need to avoid.

1. Relying only on Spellcheck. This is a very good tool in any word processing software package, but it comes with a caveat. People get lazy when they use spell check and fail to realize that Spellcheck is not 100% accurate. You still need to look for possible misspellings or words that sound the same but have different meanings.
2. Letting Your Emotions Get in the Way. In doing the task you may discover that certain paragraphs need to be revised. It’s a problem because you are perhaps emotionally attached to the text. You have to do the work with a fair amount of objectivity. If a paragraph needs to be revised for the good of the whole then do it.
3. Failing to Make the Point. You may find yourself enjoying every word you have written, but editing requires making sure that essential points have been made in the essay. If you have not covered them then you will risk a lower grade.
4. Ignoring Grammar. This is as important as checking for misspelling. It can be one of the major pitfalls, especially for somebody who has English as a second language. It is going to cause your effort to slow down a little bit as you make certain that the proper punctuation is in place. That has to be the case, or else the text will look ignorant.
5. Not Having Another Person Look at It. You are too close to the text because you are the author. In a list of pitfalls not having another pair of eyes look at the content is a big one. You should have someone who has no skin in the game do some of the editing. You may discover that this person has an idea which will improve the quality of your essay.

Edits are not always fun and can be very tedious. However, it is a way in which you guarantee a higher grade. You can think of edit activity as a form of quality control. You wrote something which you feel is worthy of high honors. The edit activity you engage in will make that possibility very much a reality.