Do you have an excellent command of the English language? Would you describe yourself as a grammar nerd and a perfectionist? Those qualities make you a decent editor. Friends and coworkers probably ask you for help quite often.

That doesn’t mean you’re also good at editing your own work. 

Writers who struggle with self-editing fall into one of three basic camps:

• Confident writers who spent lots of time playing around with the perfect phrasing, who find it hard to cut the words that need to go.
• Perfectionists who think nothing they do is good enough and tend to cut too much. 
• Tired and overworked writers who don’t have enough time or energy to spot everything that could be improved.

Do you recognize yourself as one of these types? Try following these steps to become a more effective self-editor. 

Give yourself a break

Did you just finish a piece of writing? 

You may have been “in the zone,” enjoying the writing process and getting attached to the words you wrote. You risk losing objectivity and will likely read the beautiful words you meant to write rather than the mediocre ones you did. 

You may have struggled from start to finish, intimately examining every sentence while writing your draft. Your work can turn into a collection of letters you can’t stand to look at in this case.

In both cases, you need a break — and some distance from your writing. Writers on tight deadlines can at least get up, stretch their legs, and drink a cup of water before editing their work. If you have more time, you may not want to return to your text until a few days later. Time breaks the immersive spell and allows you to see your writing for what it is.

If you don’t have time, hiring a competent and effective copy editor is better than self-editing your work.

Examine the content

Are you ready to start? Great! Breaking your self-editing process into distinct steps puts you on the path to success. 

Start by making sure your work conveys what you want it to. Read through the entire work (take it one chapter at a time if you’re writing a book). Make sure you’ve said everything you wanted to and nothing you didn’t want to — in an order that makes sense and is a pleasure to read.

Make notes as you go along and go back to edit the biggest problems once you’ve made your way through the entire draft. Repeat the process if you feel you need to.

Look out for crutches and word echos

We’re all creatures of habit. That includes you. You probably use the same words, phrases, and sentence structures over and over again, especially when you’re tired and not feeling too creative. The call of repetition can be so powerful that you repeat the same unusual words within the same paragraph or even a single sentence. 

Learn what set of habits fall into your comfort zone, analyze how they weaken your writing, and fix repetitions in your text during this stage in the editing process. 

Go through your work line by line

Don’t skip line editing. The more important your work is, the more attention each sentence deserves — on its own and in the context of the surrounding sentences. Can you think of a way to shorten or improve your sentences? Do it. 

Confident and wordy writers should learn to cut words, phrases, and sentences that don’t add value to the text. It doesn’t belong in your text if it doesn’t add information or value, no matter how much you like the sound of the words you wrote. 

Perfectionistic writers need to give themselves a bit of a break. Go over your work, but don’t get stuck on a sentence for longer than you need to.

Become a better proofreader

Catching the smallest of errors, including typos and style inconsistencies, is hard once you’ve read your text a few times. Your brain starts seeing what it’s expecting, instead of what’s actually there. 

Make it easier by changing the way you interact with the work. Choosing a different font, making the font larger, and printing the text can all help. So can starting at the end of the text. 

Tired writers should avoid the temptation to let AI-based proofreaders and editors do all the work. It’s true that artificial intelligence can craft impressive texts now, but editing software suggests bizarre corrections, too. It’s easy to accidentally allow editing software to make your writing worse if you’re not paying attention. 

Use AI editors if you must, but don’t underestimate the power of a human touch — including your own.

Take care of formatting

Ensuring your formatting is in order is the final step in the editing process. You can check whether your citations and footnotes are correctly formatted at the same time. 

Know When to Stop

As Tolstoy said, “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” 

Most decent writers can learn to self-edit shorter works — like essays, op-eds, and blog posts — effectively. The more practiced you become, the more the distinct editing steps start to merge. You’ll be able to take care of all your self-editing needs in one or two read-throughs. 

Are you writing a book or an especially important short text? Realize that self-editing has its limitations. Even the best writers are usually better off asking for someone else to edit their work. 

Working with a skilled copy editor makes this process easy. Your copy editor isn’t emotionally invested in the work and has the freedom to focus on the structure and quality with fresh and objective eyes. 

If hiring a copy editor is out of the question, at least ask a skilled but brutally honest friend to take a look at your work. Someone else will always spot issues you didn’t.