Questions tagged [editing]
Editing is the act of improving a piece of writing. Questions with this tag should focus on specific editing techniques or ways to improve editing skills. Critiques or proofreading questions are off-topic here.
19 questions from the last 365 days
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Minimal Rules of Style for a Rough Draft
Often this advice is given to writers, in discussing the creation of rhythm: First, develop your intended message, and afterward, edit for rhythm. But because I constantly experience the urge to edit ...
user25421
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When can "we" be used in a research paper?
I know the whole thing about not using first person pronouns because that makes it more personal and less objective, save for the research being an experiment conducted by the author(s). But could you ...
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How do I avoid getting depressed after receiving edits?
I just wrote my first op-ed for my college newspaper, and I've always considered myself a pretty okay writer; but after receiving my first round of edits I just feel so low, like I've disappointed the ...
- 179
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I'm rewriting a 2019 oneshot and am up to 37,000 words already. Should I make them chapters or keep it as a long oneshot?
The oneshot I did in 2019 was about 10,000 words long, but when I read it back it was terrible. Not necessarily bad but the pacing, characters and everything was just wrong (With a lot of spelling ...
- 31
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Controlling Elements of Language to Achieve Voice
Voice, which is created by stressed and unstressed syllables, and therefore dependent on rhythm, whether harmonious or rhythmically so, is defined differently by different writers, some calling it ...
user25421
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How to stop rewriting?
My main problem for the last six years has absolutely been rewriting. I write a lot, I can sit down and in hour thirty pump out a 4 thousand word chapter. My problem has always been rewriting, and ...
- 71
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Reading Aloud to Write in a Lyrical Prose Style
Most of the time when I edit my words, I never read aloud to see if my language flows, and the last time I tried it, I struggled to yield the sound that I wanted when editing. I also fear that when ...
user25421
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How can I keep my writing consistent?
I struggle with keeping my writing consistent and fear this is hampering my ability to finish my novel (currently in the editing stage).
Some scenes are brilliant, they add flavour to the story, the ...
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Revising AND Editing as You Write
There are articles on the Internet that encourage the practice of revising while writing, and others the practice of editing while writing. The former is good for structuring content, the latter when ...
user25421
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Converting a custom footnote to a continuous numbered footnote list
I have some footnotes that I am editing (on a Mac), which have cross-references to the footnote (so copying and pasting the footnote text into a newly inserted footnote is not really an option).
How ...
- 101
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What is the term for a subject matter expert that helps with editing?
I'm helping a family member by editing a translated version of a book they wrote. The book is about lacemaking, a subject I know very little of, so we got a subject matter expert involved, who was ...
- 215
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Is rhythm determined by meter or stress-groups?
As far as I know, much of the sound of a piece of writing is determined by stress and non-stress. But I don't whether it is more helpful to think of it in terms of meter or stress-groups. Though I've ...
user25421
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How to write a professional email to my publisher?
I'm a new writer dealing with a publishing house. It's been a couple of months since we last exchanged an email about edits. I'm thinking that we are towards the end period and getting ready for a ...
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Should I use do or did?
I work for a publication, and a subtitle for one of the articles goes thus: "What do Jesus, John, Jude, Mark, Matthew, Peter, and Paul have in common?" It is referring to people in the Bible,...
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Interested in editing fiction novel as co-author? [duplicate]
I've written a fiction novel that is intended to be the first in a series of five. I have not edited to novel and want to know if any writer is interested in giving it a read and would like to edit/...
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How can I keep writing even when it makes me feel uncomfortable?
I'm an entrepreneur writing a description about how my business got started. The target audience is my customers.
Writing the 1st draft is easy for me, I just write down my thoughts without worrying ...
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My writing often does not flow
I want to write in lyrical styles, not only in conversational styles, but often when I attempt that, in a rush to be done, my writing does not flow. Am I a bad writer, or am I just not editing enough?
user25421
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Should a phrase be repeated in one sentence for clarity?
In my dissertation, we analyze three types of data: (1) high contrast, (2) low contrast, and (3) zero contrast. Would it be grammatically correct to say "high, low, and zero contrast" or ...
- 11
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What is meant by deleting the last thing you wrote?
One writing tip I saw was, cutting the last thing you wrote because often it is unimportant, but I think I need a little more direction in what way I should do it.
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