The Value of Editing your Writing

Less is More

How to Add to your Writing

Recently I attended a course on Building Professional Presence at work. The course was excellent and I learned a lot. Ironically, one of the biggest lessons that I learned was the value of editing.

We did an exercise where we had to prepare a 30 second executive brief on a project. The goal was to succinctly update an executive on the Situation, Action being taken, Results, and Support required. (Yeah, I know “SARS”.)

Here was my first pass:

It took 28 seconds and my group thought it was “fine” if not a little “wordy” and my request at the end was weak. Before they even finished providing feedback I made the following edits:

This time it was 15 seconds and the feedback was much better. The instructor actually used mine as an example for the rest of the class.

Moral of the store: Edit, Edit, Edit! Every bit of fat that you trim away just leaves a more attractive piece of meat on the plate.

I made a video covering the process. Take a look.

Dont’ Take My Word For It

Just because I know that you need to edit your writing doesn’t mean that I’m any good at it. But these guys are really good, so see what they say about editing:

Editing for Tighter Copy: How to Write with a Knife | Copyblogger

Five Easy Steps to Editing Your Own Work | Copyblogger

Copyediting Tips, Copyediting Process, Proofreading Online

“How To” Copy Editing Tips – Listen To An Expert !

How to Revise, Edit and Proofread Your Writing

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