Revising

Remember this saying: Most of writing is rewriting. Ideally, you should spend most of your time in this stage of the writing process.

Rewriting Definitions
Rewriting, revising, and revision all mean the same thing: looking at a piece again and writing it over, using a fresh approach or perspective. The result of each rewrite is a new draft of your piece.

Editing involves making adjustments and smoothing out the rough edges in a piece that is basically in good shape.
Polishing means minor editing.

Proofreading is the process of checking for technical problems such as omitted words, spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Revising is a major rewrite of your manuscript to produce a new draft.

Editing is smoothing out the rough edges of your manuscript. Not considered a new draft.

Polishing is minor editing.

Proofreading comes at the end.

There are many different ways to rewrite. Choose the ways that you can handle. Apply the methods that work best for the situation.

Tips on Rewriting

• You may need to rewrite all of your draft or only one part of it.
• There is no set number of revisions. Deadlines and personal opinion usually dictate rewriting. With each revision, look for less and less changes. When you review a draft with few changes, you are probably ready to submit the manuscript for publication.
• When rewriting start with large concerns and then work on smaller concerns. Large concerns would be arrangement of ideas, theme, structure and so on. Small concerns would be word choice, sentence arrangement, paragraph arrangement and proofreading.
• Keep trimming, even when you think you've taken care of a problem.
• You man need to trim words out of your manuscript more than once.
• Concise prose is better than wordiness.
• Stephen King says your second draft is your first draft minus ten percent.
• Use a dictionary and style manual on a frequent basis.
• Save deleted material.
• Read your manuscript out loud. This will help you come across rough patches that the mind glosses over.

Revision Checklist

• Is your purpose clear?
• Is your language and topic suited to our audience?
• Is your writing organized in a logical way?
• Have you cut all material that's off the topic?
• Are your sentences concise and correct?
• Is your writing fluid and graceful?
• Have you used descriptive and precise words?
• Is your writing entertaining and fun to read?
• Is your writing free from biased language?
• Have you corrected all errors in grammar, usage, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization?

Things to Look for When Proofreading

• Fragments
• Run-ons
• Missing letters
• Errors in homonyms (example: their/they're/there)
• Spell check AND proofread
• Pronouns, when to use who, whom
• Subject - verb agreement
• Double negatives
• Misplace modifiers
• Dangling modifiers
• Passive voice
• Missing commas
• Misused semicolons and colons
• Missing apostrophes
• Copyrighted names (like Kleenex®, Xerox®)