Learning to edit

By Trey Reeme on April 12, 2006

12 Comments

A recent post shared five tips on how to write better web content. The first: learn to edit.

It’s so tough because school assignments programmed me to ramble. I wrote a ton of papers, and most turned out mediocre due to a minimum length requirement of ten pages (12 pt. Times New Roman, double-spaced, of course).

First drafts would always land a few pages short. I’d squeeze the margins in by a quarter inch, increase the line spacing to 2.25, bump the font size up to 12.25, and cover every paragraph with adjectives. If that didn’t stretch it to having just a line on that tenth page, I’d pad it with more adjectives and take a tenth of an inch where I could.

Years of minimum page requirements taught me to deploy the adjectives at the front-end of the process. Eventually I got so comfortable with verbosity that I still struggle with the habit. Here’s what I do to combat drivel:

  • Use a staging area. On posts like this, I start in the scratch pad on my Google Desktop sidebar before moving to a better staging area. When I put together content for a traditional site, I use a wiki for taking inventory, editing and collaborating. When I need collaboration on something short, Writeboards also work nicely. (When Writely allows new registrations again, I’ll add that to my options.)
  • Get honest feedback from tough critics. How can I tell if I’m getting honest feedback? If it stings, it’s honest. It helps to work with people who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re off your game. (Thanks, Matt, Brent, and Mark.)
  • Keep it as short as possible concise.
  • Identify your weaknesses. It’s through the sting of honest feedback mentioned above that I’ve learned I’m a passive writer, a comma splicer, and a rambler. I watch these reappear, then I do my best to fix them.
  • Bookmark and revisit this Lifehack post on fifty tools for better writing.

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