Editing for grammar and adherence to most standards can now be covered by a full-featured writing software. As such, you can eliminate those repetitive activities from your task list, focusing your attention on more involved items, such as organization, structure, style and flow.
Give It Time. Avoid editing on the same day you write a piece. While you can do basic proofreading, most other activities will require a certain amount of objectivity to be done effectively. Just let it sit overnight or, if you don’t have that luxury, a couple of hours before working your editing chops.
Reverse Outline. If you’ve read through the piece and found certain parts confusing, try reverse-outlining. The idea is to produce an outline of the work as you read through it, so you can more clearly see how it flows. Is the delivery of ideas achieved in a sensible and logical order? Does it follow the correct format as required by your guidelines?
Idea Development. Read carefully through each paragraph and see how the central idea for each one is developed. If a paragraph contains more than one idea, try isolating each one into its own block of text. This should allow the idea to develop more fully. In the same way, see how similar ideas will look when combined into one paragraph.
