The Super Big Picture

Give it time to breath. Like a fine wine, you need to let it air out a bit, before critiquing the bouquet, or whatever they call it. Attempt to give yourself a day or two before jumping back in. If you're like me, then you wrote this puppy the day before it was due. If that's the case, at least take an hour break and do nothing academic before revising and editing

Now, you wanna read it out loud. This will help you pick up on any major stumbling blocks, such as tense consistency (past, present, future). It also allows you to hear and see the work, instead of just using your eyes. This is easily the most important and easiest tip you can do

Next up, make sure the thesis statement is easy to find and easy to understand. Ask yourself these questions: Does my thesis answer a question or assert an opinion? Do my supporting paragraphs, including each paragraph's topic sentence, relate directly to my thesis? Is the organization logical? Answering these questions, early on in the edition process, will greatly decrease the craziness of editing and revising you paper. (Bonus Tip: One way to check the organization is to write your thesis down and then all of your topic sentences. This way, you can see how they relate to each other, without all the other words getting in the way)

Try to read it again, out loud, but this time as if you're the reader. The key to a good essay is to always keep your reader in mind. Have good knowledge of your audience will allow you to make decisions, like how much background information is needed on what others would consider common knowledge.

Understand the power in your choice of words. There are differences in the meanings of different words, and figuring out the right one is key to getting your point across. Here are two sentences that take on different levels of meaning:

The Obama administration has been criticized for its response to the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Lately the Obama administration has been criticized for its response to the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

The media as been reporting various amounts of criticism towards the Obama Administration and their handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

The Small Sentence and Word Picture

One of the hardest aspects of sentence and word level editing is not getting missing the typos and word choice errors you have made. By the time you get down to this level of editing, you have probably read the piece over and over, and it is easy to not see those errors. Here are some tips and strategies to get at those annoying little ants of errors.

Read the essay with a piece of paper or ruler, focusing on one line at a time, looking for spelling, grammar, and word choice errors

Reading out loud is another strategy. You will pick up on punctuation errors and the flow of your sentence structure

Another aspect of good editing is to learn from your mistakes. If you've been told, or you know, that you use the passive voice often, attempt to not make those mistakes again. Same to be said on any other errors you make. You may want to consider keeping an error log, so you can review it often and fix the problem before they're made

Get rid of wordiness or complex expressions. If you can say "because" instead of "due to the fact that", then say it. Concise writing is good writing. Here are some common wordy expression:

Due to the fact that / because

Is able to / can

In the event that / if

At the present time / Now

Have a tendency to / Usually

Had a discussion / Discussed

Made a decision / Decided

Punch up your writing with the ACTIVE VOICE and not the passive voice. The best way to understand this concept is through examples. An easy rule is to try and not use various forms of the verb "to be". Take a gander:

Active voice is when the subject is the agent or actor of action

The cat ate the mouse ("cat" as subject, "ate" being active)

Passive voice is when the subject is being acted upon

The mouse was eaten by the cat ("was eaten" is passive)

Do whatever possible to avoid phrases like "It is" and "There are" when you can say it differently. For instance, "It is a fact that American's enjoy soda pop" can just as easily be phrased as "A fact is that American's enjoy soda pop" or "American's enjoy soda pop". There is no need to stretch phrases out more than needed.

Be careful of clichés, colloquialisms, idioms, and the like. If the person reading your paper doesn't understand the phrase, it will only serve to confuse.

Cliché - Overused expression like "live and learn" or "stay the course"

Colloquialisms - a common spoken expression, often regional. Examples include "more than one way to skin a cat" or calling all soft drinks by the name "Coke" or "y'all"

Idioms - Phrases that are not to be taken literally, like "he runs like the wind" or "break a leg"

Make sure you have a variety of sentences. Some should be short. Others should be long, winding down a stream of happiness, waiting for another drop of water to refresh itself. Don't work about too much variety; variety, itself, is the spice of life. And yes, that was one big example of variety capped of with a horrible cliché.

A great trick to check on spelling, in addition to the horrible spell checker of MS Word, is to read the paper backwards, each line, from right to left. There is nothing worse than giving the poor impression that you can't follow college level instructions - to turn in a paper without spelling errors.

For more articles, resources, links, and suggested books, please head on over to College Essay Editing and my How to Raise Your GPA article series