Revising, Editing, and Proofreading Overview

Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Goal

  • The goal of revising is to determine if your message achieves your purpose for your given audience, and to change it until it does.
  • The goal of editing and proofreading is to review your written text for errors in grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation, etc. so that there are no mistakes left in your message that could distract the reader and stop you from achieving your purpose.

Typical Tasks

  • Revising your text

  • Editing for grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation, etc.

  • Proofreading to ensure that no final errors remain

  • Revising prioritises higher-order concerns such as:

    • Purpose
    • Content
    • Organisation
    • Coherence

  • Editing and proofreading manage lower-order concerns such as:

    • Grammar
    • Punctuation
    • Spelling
    • Word choice

Typical Problems

  • Revising while drafting
  • Editing multiple issues at the same time (e.g. word choice and grammar)
  • Fixating on perfecting specific sentences
  • Inability to be critical of your writing
  • Editing for lower-order concerns before you have revised for higher-order concerns
  • Forgetting to proofread

A Note on Terminology

You will see and hear the words revising, editing, and proofreading throughout this lesson, and you might ask yourself, "Aren't they all the same? What is the difference?" However, while you will sometimes see them used interchangeably, there is a difference between these words.

  • Revising is focused on the ideas of your work. When revising, you are looking at if your writing contains all the information required to achieve its purpose and if it is structured in a way that is logical and pulls the reader forward through the text. This is done by managing the higher-order concerns in your writing (i.e. purpose, content, organisation, and coherence).
  • Editing and Proofreading are focused on form. When editing, you are looking at the sentence level to ensure that you are using grammar and mechanics correctly to communicate your ideas clearly, concisely, and concretely. Proofreading is a final step of editing, where you are doing a last check to ensure that everything you have written is correct.

References

Burnell, C., Wood, J., Babin, M., Pesznecker, S., Rosevear, N. The Word on College Reading and Writing. Open Oregon Educational Resources.

Purdue Online Writing Lab, Higher-Order Concerns and Lower-Order Concerns.