How to Make an Editor’s Eyes Sparkle

Don’t you just hate it when writers pepper their work with exclamation marks? F Scott Fitzgerald is quoted as saying: “Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.” But I must admit that I always have to go through my writing slashing stray exclamations marks, as they do tend to worm their way in.

The other thing I have to keep a close eye on is typos. Because we’re the writing experts, people are always keen to point out when we get something wrong in our course material or on our website. And I can guarantee that even if you read something time and time again – as soon as you upload or print it you’ll spot a missing word or spelling mistake.

Tips to avoid this include putting your work away for a day or two (or a few hours if time is short) and then reading through again carefully. By doing this you’ve distanced yourself and you can often read what is on the page objectively and pick out mistakes, rather than looking at the page but seeing what’s still buzzing around in your head.

Another tip is to always print off the article or story and read the hard copy. It’s easier to spot mistakes on a hard copy than on a computer screen.

Finally, try reading your work through three times before you are satisfied. The first time read it through to ensure that it flows smoothly, makes sense and the facts are correct; the second time read it through to check your spelling; the third time read it through to check that punctuation is correct and the layout is good.

If you’re disciplined, and follow this advice you’ll have a much better chance of sending out the kind of error-free work that makes editors’ eyes sparkle! (Woops, how did that exclamation mark creep in?)