How to Edit Documents

One of the easiest ways to edit any document – whether an academic essay, a poem, a novel, a blog article, or anything important – is simply to order editing and proofreading services. Most companies that provide these types of services, including companies offering book proofreading services UK, have a pool of writing and editing professionals who can help you on any writing-related task you may have.

However, if you are committed to editing a piece of writing yourself, there are a few tricks of the trade that are important not to overlook. This article covers the main points that will help you do a great editing job irrespective of the type of document you are working with.

 

1. Use an editing checklist

Any wordsmiths out there will know how valuable it is to use an editing checklist. This is what professionals use when they provide editing and proofreadingservices as it enables them to ensure that nothing is neglected when working on a piece of writing. No matter what type of document you have in front of you, having an editing checklist to hand will prove invaluable.

For almost all editing tasks, a standard checklist that can be applied fruitfully to improve the document will focus on the following issues:

·         Clarity

·         Concision

·         Punctuation mistakes

·         Spelling mistakes

·         Incorrect use of prepositions and conjunctions

·         Formatting errors

·         Consistent tense

·         Consistent tone

·         Subject-verb agreement

If you approach the editing task with a checklist like the one above beside you, you’ll find that you can edit almost anything!

 

2. Choose the right words and phrases, not the most complex-sounding ones

Oftentimes, writers will favour words that are complex or long, which is generally an unnecessary and undesirable practice. It’s understandable that writers sometimes do this, especially when they need to appear authoritative about the topic they are addressing. However, in writing, bigger is not always better.

When editing, therefore, if you keep in mind the general rule that you should aim for concise words and phrases rather than complex-sounding ones, this will go an extremely long way toward improving the quality of the document you are working on. After checking over the version of the document you edited using this general rule, the writer will likely be impressed as they will be able to easily understand what they previously wrote much more effectively than they originally could.

 

3. Kill your darlings

Being ready to “kill your darlings” – which is to say that you are ready to get rid of parts of your writing that you may be very proud of – is an essential part of the editing process. If you are willing to eliminate any sections of your document that don’t contribute to its purpose, and if you act on this during the editing process, you’ll be well-positioned to optimise any type of document you are working on.

A Comprehensive Guide to Essay-Writing

Editing and proofreading services, and even book proofreading services in the UK, should always be a writer’s go-to when they are nearing the end of the writing process. In the case of proofreading services, these are ideal when you have finalised your writing and need to add extra polish, while editing services are useful at an earlier stage when you are trying to optimise the way your writing comes across to its intended audience.

However, if you are nowhere near the stage of making use of editing and proofreading services, it’s useful to know about some of the resources and strategies that can help you along. For example, essay-writing – which is the focus of this article – is an often-daunting activity that editors and proofreaders cannot help you with, and so it’s worth learning about how to complete this particular task well.

 

What are the main types of essays?

Every scholar out there has their own classification system for essay types, but here are a few of the most common ones:

• ·         Persuasive essay: Seeks to convince the reader of a certain point of view.
• ·         Admissions essay: Explain why the candidate is interested in applying to a particular institution.
• ·        Expository essay: Comprehensively introduces a given topic, ideally in an objective and unbiased way, to increase the awareness and knowledge of the reader.
• ·        Comparison essay: Describes a pair of opposing issues, arguments, or – for that matter – anything else (e.g., artworks, computing systems, and so on).
• ·         Personal essay: Communicates anecdotal events and typically written in a narrative structure.

 

What structure should an essay have?

Although there are many types of essays, most tend to follow a similar structure:

·         Introduction: Sets the background and context for the essay, the key topics it will cover, and – by the time it has finished – clearly communicates to the reader what the focal point of the essay is.

·         Body: A series of paragraphs or sections and subsections, ordered in a logical and coherent way, that present evidence in support of the focus of the essay.

·         Conclusion: Wraps up the essay, potentially reiterating its key points and, if the word count allows, adds a new perspective for understanding the focus of the essay. Generally, conclusions should not introduce new evidence.

 

How can I write a strong essay?

As noted earlier, it is usually recommended to call on a professional editor or proofreader only once you have written all – or most – of your essay. Once it is finished, the editor or proofreader can help you to optimise the written work you already have, but they cannot write the document for you.

If you’re not yet at a point where you can do this, consider following the process described below to help you along:

• ·         Mapping ideas
• ·         Planning
• ·         Drafting
• ·         Revising

During the final revision stage, it may be useful to consult with an editor to see if you have gone in the right direction. Also, remember that after the revision stage, it is essential to proofread your work.

4 Good Tips When Proofreading Your Own Work

One of the surest ways to ensure that your document is free from errors, is to use a professional proofreading service. When you recruit an expert to provide proofreading services for your university work, novel, or journal article, you can rest assured that they will spot all of the embarrassing errors that you may have made.

However, ordering a proofreading service is not the most cost-effective way to ensure that your written work is in a pristine and presentable condition when it comes to publishing it. Rather than using proofreading services, if you check your own work, this can save you the expense and, if you do it carefully, yield the required results.

Proofreading your own work, though, is not a simple task. This is the reason why professional proofreaders train for many years, as it enables them to develop the complex skills needed to do the job efficiently and effectively. Nevertheless, if you are eager to get stuck in to the proofreading process, this article offers 4 quick tips that will help you improve the presentation of your work.

 

1. Use a good spellchecker

Using a high-quality spellchecker is the first crucial tip that you need to follow if you decide to proofread your own work. Many good spellcheckers are freely available, ranging from the array of software solutions built into programs like Microsoft Word ,to other online options such as Grammarly. Be sure to run through your work with a spellchecker both before you start proofreading and after completion.

 

2. Begin only after finishing your final draft

This is an often-overlooked point, but it is one of the most important ways to improve the speed and quality of your proofreading process. If you start proofreading your work before you have finalised it, then you are likely to need to make further changes even after you have finished the first round of proofing. This makes the process unnecessarily lengthy, meaning that you should begin proofreading only after finishing your final draft.

 

3. Check carefully for homonyms

Spellcheckers are an indispensable tool when proofreading your work, as noted in the first tip given in this article. However, spellcheckers overlook many issues that are obvious to the human eye, one of which is the so-called “homonym error”. A homonym is a word that has a similar pronunciation to another word but a different meaning and spelling (e.g., “bear” and “bare”), and – as you can check right now – your spellchecking software will reliably fail when it comes to spotting homonym errors. For this reason, you need to check your work carefully for homonyms.

 

4. Aim for consistency

A major part of a proofreader’s job, but one that’s often overlooked even by many professionals, is to ensure that all aspects of a manuscript are consistent. This ranges from consistency in spelling and grammar to consistency in capitalisation, numbering, punctuation, and many other areas. Therefore, before you finish proofreading, undertake a systematic check for any areas where consistency is desirable (e.g., Are headings all in title case? Does section numbering skip any numbers? And so on).   

Should I use a rewriting service?

Rewriting services, also commonly referred to as paraphrasing services, are an excellent all-rounder to use. This is because a paraphrasing service can be used to achieve almost any writing-related goal. In contrast to proofreading and editing services, which are mainly focused on correcting errors and other inconsistencies in your document, paraphrasing services are much more flexible.

Image: Paraphrasing services come in handy for all sorts of writing tasks

Given the greater flexibility of a proofreading service compared to the work undertaken by editors or proofreaders, it is important to ensure that such a service actually suits your case use. Otherwise, if you work with a rewriter when you only needed an editor, you’ll needlessly have to pay a higher fee. This is due to the greater complexity, skill, and time required to rewrite a document compared to editing and proofreading documents.

One of the most well-known use cases of professional rewriting services is to avoid plagiarism. There are computer programs and software available today that are marketed as solutions for this issue, but many students and academics recognize how inadequate these programs are. For example, some of the leading automated paraphrasing systems cannot produce coherent text, let alone capture your unique authorial voice while reducing plagiarism.

Other than helping to avoid plagiarism, rewriting services play a valuable role in speeding up the process of conducting research. In addition to this, researchers and academics can exploit rewriting services to increase the comprehensiveness of their procedures. For example, if excerpts from scholarly articles are collected, arranged, and sent for rewriting to a professional paraphraser, the application of a rewriting service leads to the production of something like a literature review. When this mechanism is used for research purposes, it serves as a tremendous accelerant.

Taking the easy way for once is advisable. Many researchers overload themselves with diverse tasks, ranging from writing to teaching to fieldwork to editing to design (e.g., preparing experiments). If they reduce the number of tasks they are coordinating, such as by working with a professional document paraphraser or rewriter, this can allow them to focus on where their strengths lie. For individuals who are in this position, this represents one of the ideal occasions to use a rewriting service.

As a final reason to use case for rewriting services, which may help you decide when to use such a service, consider a situation where somebody needs to summarise one or several documents, or they have to reduce the word count of a single document. In this scenario, recruiting an expert in paraphrasing can help you solve the fairly dull and time-consuming task of summarising documents or reducing  word counts.  

 

The role of editing and proofreading when writing your thesis

In many ways, writing a thesis is like writing a book. Just as there are book proofreading services UK for people writing novels or short stories, there are also editing and proofreading services that can make it easier to write your thesis. Oftentimes, working with an editor or proofreader who specialises in your subject area can help you optimise your thesis.

When you work with an editor or proofreader to improve your thesis, you save substantial time and you also ensure that your ideas are conveyed in the clearest possible way. This represents a double-win: you can allocate the time you save to other important academic tasks, and you can also benefit from a high-quality document. This helps to ensure that you receive the best mark that you can for your all-important final submission at your university.

Many users of editing and proofreading services wonder about how these services actually work to improve their written documents. What exactly is the role of editing and proofreading in enhancing your document? How is it that cooperating with an editor or a proofreader can change my thesis? These are critical questions that this article seeks to help answer.

Above all else, the role of editing and proofreading in the thesis-writing process is concerned with a collection of carefully applied steps. These steps cover the following issues: language, consistency, and progression of ideas. At the outset, it is also important to ensure that your writing, formatting, and referencing styles satisfy the requirements published by your university.

For example, your department may ask you to use the Harvard, Modern Language Association of America (MLA), or American Psychological Association (APA) styles. Always remember to pay attention to the edition of the style guide you are using as there is a substantial difference between, for example, the 6th and 7th APA style guides. It is worth noting that sticking to the style guide as you write your thesis can save you a significant amount of time when reviewing your work. This can also save you money if your proofreader or editor does not need to spend as long revising your document.

Regarding the important steps involved in editing and proofreading your thesis, these are mentioned above: language, consistency, and progression of ideas. Language refers to the dialect or the regional/national variation that exists in the language used (e.g., US or UK English). It is important to ask your department about the dialect of English to be used. Consistency refers to the overall use of terms, tense, numbering, formatting, abbreviations, and referencing in your document. Finally, the progression of ideas is concerned with the coherence and logical flow of your writing.

When you work with a professional editor or proofreader to improve your thesis, you can benefit from dramatic improvements in language, consistency, and progression of ideas. Coupled with the benefits of time-saving and freeing you up to complete other tasks, working with a proofreader or editor typically plays a valuable role in optimising your thesis.

5 tips for blog- editing and proofreading

Given the widespread nature of the Internet, it’s easy for anyone to blog online. This means that any individual has the ability to engage with millions of people at once. While this comes with many clear advantages, the importance of properly proofreading and editing blog posts is often overlooked. Proofreading and editing services offer a convenient and rapid way to improve your blog post, but it is also important to know how to complete these tasks yourself, should you ever need to do so. Therefore, this article presents a few tips that you can follow to ensure that your blog posts are edited and proofread in the most effective way.

 

1. Editing for context

Depending on who you are, the tone and style of language that you use should be different. Furthermore, blog posts express something about an individual’s personality, and so it is all the more important to pay attention to the question of tone and style. The fact that any other person can find your blog post and read it online should also cause you to guard your personal details. With these issues in mind, you should edit your writing to remove thoughts, ideas, and phrases that you may not really want an audience to read.

 

2. Check your facts

There are no gatekeepers to publishing an article on the Internet. For this reason, you are not required to use citations or references in your article, and you do not have to conform to a specific writing or formatting style. Nevertheless, one of the basic requirements is to ensure that all the factual statements given in your blog post are accurate and correct. Therefore, as you proofread and edit your blog post before publishing it, remember to Google any of the factual statements you make.

 

3. Concision is key

When you write, edit, and proofread your blog post, try to think about what you want to see as a reader. If you do, you’ll quickly become aware that the shorter, the better. You may be familiar with the abbreviation “TL;DR” (“too long; didn’t read”), which is often used to indicate that the length of a blog post is excessive. If you’ve seen this phrase being used online, you’ll know what it signals as a reader, and so as a writer and editor, you should try not to fall into the trap. Do not fill in the gaps with, repetetive, padded out sentences and paragraphs.

 

4. Read your blog post backward

This is an age-old trick in the proofreading community. It might sound like something an inexperienced person would do to ensure that they proofread their work correctly. However, even the most experienced proofreaders still use the backward-reading technique to improve their accuracy.

 

 

5 Reasons to use proofreading services

If you’ve ever talked to someone who has used a good proofreading service, they likely tried to convey to you the benefits of these services.

Users of high-quality proofreading services typically benefit from substantial time savings, better written work, and communication with experienced English writers checking every step.

Using a proofreading service isn’t just a way to improve the quality of your written documents in a quick, convenient, and affordable fashion. Indeed, while these services function really well as a way to make English seem like your first language and enhance your writing, they have many other benefits.

For example, it is well known that working with a strong proofreader can help make you become a better writer in the long run.

With these issues in mind, this article focuses on some of the reasons why you should consider using professional proofreading services, even if you haven’t already.

 

1. Get a fresh pair of eyes

When you are very familiar with a document, you become blind to the errors it contains. When you already know what the words say, you frequently overlook what the words are really saying. For this reason, working with a proofreader is an opportunity to have a fresh pair of eyes check over your work.

 

2. Affordability

In the past, working with a proofreader was something that could cost a substantial amount of money. However, with the rise of the Internet and its growing adoption around the world, the cost of connecting with native English speakers and hiring them as proofreaders is now extremely affordable and is becoming more and more convenient and affordable, as competitive service  providers look to offer better costs to their potential clients .

 

3. Interact with an experienced proofreader

An important benefit of working with a proofreading agency (as opposed to a freelance proofreader working alone) is that, chances are, the agency will know a proofreader who is a specialist in your area. For example, if you have technical documents, a proofreading agency can link you up with a proofreader who is familiar with all the core terminologies in your field.

 

4. Consider the views of others

It is often difficult to recognise that to perform at our best, we need the help of others. However, when it comes to writing a strong document, be it an essay, a press release, or a novel, it is widely understood that working with proofreaders and editors is essential to ensure high-quality work. Whether you are a student, an academic, or a businessperson, considering the views of a proofreader or editor and integrating their feedback into your work can help to enhance your writing skills.

 

5. Improve your writing

Not only does working with a proofreader improve the quality of any given document, but also proofreaders can show you how to improve your writing. When Microsoft Word’s “track changes” feature is used, you can follow along with the proofreader’s edits and revisions to your work. If you review their changes, you can learn a lot about how to improve future writing presentations.

 

 

 

5 Reasons to hire a professional proofreader

People who write frequently – students, authors, researchers, journalists, business people, and others – are increasingly taking the easy and reliable way when preparing documents, relying on expert proofreaders to polish their written work for them.

The use of proofreading services provided by specialists has a long history, dating back many hundreds of years. However, it is only recently, with the growth of the Internet, that native English writers and proofreading service providers are available and accessible 24/7 to offer high-quality services.

This article is intended for people who may not have used or come across proofreading and editing services before. It offers 5 simple reasons why, if you have a document to submit soon or in the future, why you should consider hiring a professional proofreader, the reasons for doing so!

 

1. Some documents need to be error-free

For scholarly articles, technical documentation (e.g., in engineering or computer science), and many other types of writing, errors simply cost too much. If you are writing a document that contains essential or mission-critical information, working with a professional proofreader to ensure that it is presented clearly and correctly is fundamental.

 

2. Exploit your strengths

If you are a researcher or a student, or – for that matter – anybody who needs to prepare a clear, accurate, and correct document, it is advisable that you work with a professional proofreader during the final stages of preparing your manuscript. Proofreaders receive specialised training, and so if you hire them, they apply their knowledgeable skill-sets, freeing up your own time. As a result, you can use this time to increase work productivity in other areas.

 

3. Become a better writer

If you communicate with proofreaders and review the work they complete for you, you can become a substantially better writer over time. Oftentimes, authors make similar mistakes over and over again, and having somebody else check over your work gives them a chance to point this out to you. In the long run, this will greatly improve your writing skills.

 

4. Options to minimise cost

Most proofreading service providers will offer a discounted rate if you can extend your deadline. For example, if you need to complete your work in 24 hours, then this will cost more than a longer deadline of 7 to 14 days. It is always worth bearing this in mind if you are not rushing to receive your finished work.

 

5. See what others think!

You don’t need to rely only on our word if you are still unsure about whether to hire a professional proofreader. Checkout the Trustpilot website or another online forum, you can find reviews for many online proofreading agencies, as well as freelancers or speak to anyone who has already used these types of services.