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THE LAST PROCESSES OF WRITING

EDITING AND PROOFREADING

All of the steps in the revision process—prewriting, drafting, proofreading, revising, and
editing—are intended to make your piece of writing clearer and therefore, better. Editing is
when you really focus on trimming the fat. Imagine you have ordered a steak at a restaurant.

If it consisted of half fat, bone, and gristle, you would be unhappy. You might send it back.
The same is true with your writing. Cut away anything that is not “meat” before you serve it.
Editing can be a painstaking process. Analyzing your own writing is hard because you know
what you meant to say. However, if you slow down and really concentrate on the words and
their meaning, you can do it. Stop after each sentence to see if it is the best sentence it could
be. Consult dictionaries to ensure you have used the word correctly, or check a thesaurus for
a more appropriate word and to avoid repetition. Examine each sentence to see if a word or
two can be cut. Eliminate auxiliary verbs, rewrite clichés, cut out redundancies, and create
sentence variety. Don’t be afraid that your piece will end up to be half the length it was
before. Even if it does, it will undoubtedly be better.

The finishing stages of

writing are editing and
proofreading. While editing
focuses on
grammar and language use,
proofreading focuses on
typography and mechanics.
During
this stage, you need to use
standardized editing symbols
to note the corrections. Here
are the basic proofreading
symbols:
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Examples
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Activity

Proofread the following paragraph by choosing from the 3 options:

a. Use the basic proofreading symbols above by using a pen and paper. Scan your
document afterwards then, submit. Check Draft with Proofreader’s Symbols. Include
also a Revised Copy.
b. Submit only the corrected version of the paragraph. Check Revised Copy Sample.
c. Do all of these three.
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The Filipino time is more than an idiom especially in terms of registrations and applications.
This is evident when the electoin period comes as many Filipinos wait until the last minute
to registerasvoters. The commission on elections coe has long observed thispheno menon. It has
proposed a solution in the form of the early registrationperiod this solution aims to give voters
enough time to register. It was also organized in hte hopse that more filipinoS will be able to
register and vote come election period.

There are several ways of going through the editing process. You can edit it on your
own or you may ask someone credible enough to edit your work. In this activity, you will
immerse yourself as an editor/proofreader/copyreader.

Additionally, in these modern times, the use of online tools such as Grammarly could also
help in editing and proofreading. However, another matter you have to face when editing
your work is the issue of plagiarism.

Consider the illustration below.

"I'm afraid you need to rewrite your paper because of these plagiarized items."

It is not only important that you present original insights in you work, it is also
important that you cite your sources. Since the Internet is now widely used and consulted
for writing purposes, there is a high possibility that you might unintentionally copy ideas
without properly citing them. To avoid this, you can use an online plagiarism checker
such as plagtracker.com and smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker to check the source of the
plagiarized content and do the necessary citation.
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PUBLISHING

Even if most of your written works are made for academic purposes only, you can
still share them with other people. After exerting effort in writing a good paper, you have
to showcase your work to other people. This stage is known as publishing. One way to
publish your work is by posting it on social networking sites such as blogs or Facebook and
more reputed research-sharing websites such as academia.edu. You can also publish your
work collectively with your classmates by coming up with a book or magazine out of your
essays or by creating a class blog which will feature everyone's works.

References:

Bailey, S. (2004). Academic Writing. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
Barrot, J. (2016). Academic Reading and Writing. Quezon City: C&E Publishing. doi:978-
971-98-0454-3
This book serves as an overall reference for this course.

Saqueton, G., & Uychoco, M. (2016). English for Academic and Professional Purposes (1st
ed.). Manila: REX Bookstore. doi:978-971-23-7831-7
This book serves as an overall reference for this course.