Which techniques can I use to become a better editor when editing my own writing?

Question

I'm looking to improve my ability to edit and correct my own writing. What are some techniques I can use to help me with this?

Answer 1

I would say there are two aspects to editing. The first is remembering who you are writing to, their purpose for reading your writing, and their prior knowledge of the subject. So you have to make sure your intended audience or reader can understand you easily. As yourself: will they understand this (not YOU)? What other information will they need?

The other issue is the mechanical aspect of recognizing complete sentences, spelling, punctuation, and word choice. Does your language fit the context (academic, business, formal, etc.)? Do you repeat lots of very simple words? Do all your sentences start the same way? Can the reader breathe after a sentence (or is it a run-on- connected improperly)? If you read it aloud, do you yourself have to stop in the middle to make sense of the sentence (then there's something wrong)?

The hardest part of self-editing is putting yourself in the reader's place and seeing your writing from their perspective.