Even though we use computers for writing and editing, a good pen never goes astray
Loving your work is perhaps a luxury but I really have loved my editing jobs this month.
I had the pleasure of editing a great essay by a Year 12 student this month. Great writing that drove the narrative forward and held the reader’s attention.
Structurally it was very sound. And while it might have looked like there were lots of ‘red marks’ (even if an an online edit in Word with track changes), many of the changes were typographical or consistency issues – double or single quotation marks, when to use a ‘z’ or an ‘s’? It was a great piece of writing and good to edit.
Also, I edited some webpages for Linda Magson, Sydney Counsellor’s website. Editing webpages is quite different from editing print pages. Structurally, the two medias are similar. However, for websites, focusing on specific keywords for each webpage and making sure keyword density is right are just two of the differences. Metatagging is also something I do when editing webpages.
Then there was the writing and editing of the Captivations website and writing news articles for Liza McKilliam Real estate, Kenmore and Chapel Hill in Brisbane.
As an editor who also writes, here is some advice on good writing.
Six tips for great writing
Whether writing for the web or for print, good writing has:
- interesting and/or important ideas of value to the reader
- logical organisation of the content – use headings to signpost the information in the body text
- an appropriate voice for the context of the work – some things to think about: is it formal or casual, friendly or factual?
- the right words and good variation so that the writing is interesting
- smooth and expressive paragraphs and sentence structure
- correct and consistent punctuation, spelling and grammar that make the text easy to read
And regardless how good you think your own writing is, a professional editor will make it better. That’s the truth because as writers we’re too close to the work to find the little things that take a good piece of writing to a great one.
Love the work? Get the best editor. Contact Sue Stevens for a quote. Read about Sue Stevens on the Bold Type website.
Tags: editing, professional editor, writing skills
