7 Quick Self-Editing Tips for Bloggers

This is a guest post by Blake Atwood, who is the author of Don’t Fear the Reaper: Why Every Author Needs an Editor and a few other books. He’s a full-time author, editor, and ghostwriter with EditFor.me. Connect with him on Twitter @batwood.

Write. Post. Repeat. Write. Post. Repeat.

Blogging can be a maddening chore. If what I know about my own blogging habits holds true for most bloggers, it’s a process that involves furious writing with an intent to publish content as quickly as possible. Whenever a post idea strikes, I tend to want to get it written and posted quickly—too quickly in fact. Even as a full-time editor, I sometimes fail to take care of my blogging words as I would the words I put into my books.

So, in an effort to help myself and you, here are 7 quick tips for self-editing blog posts:

1. Rest the post.

I know this isn’t always possible, but I’ve always found this to be an invaluable piece of advice for my books. If you have the opportunity, allow the post to rest for a day. Try to get what you’ve written out of your mind, then return to it the next day and try to read it as if you weren’t the one that had written it.

• Does it make sense?
• Where do you stumble as you read it to yourself?
• Do you see a gap where more information is needed?
• Do you see where a section might need to be deleted?
• Would the post be better if it was divided into a series of posts?

Fresh eyes unburdened by a pressing need to publish can do wonders for a blog post.

2. Pay attention to your squiggles.

It’s my belief (founded on my own experiences) that we tend to look past the spell-check squiggles that appear on our posts. I compose my posts in Scrivener, and highly visible red squiggles appear beneath any misspelled word I type. If I’m typing too quickly, I may miss these helpful markers. WordPress helps check your spelling, and MS Word offers to check your spelling and grammar (though you shouldn’t always trust its grammar check).

3. Run spell check.

Sure, this ought to be a no-brainer, but let me just ask a hard question: How often do you run spell check on your posts? Why or why not? (Answer in the comments if you’re brave.) Even as an editor, I have to remind myself to do this. It’s such a simple and quick fix, but I think we may forgo its use because we’re so intent on publishing quickly.

4. Find and replace double spaces.

Hate me if you must, but double spaces are a holdover from ancient days. Use your word processor’s find-and-replace function to search for double spaces (just type in two spaces) and replace them with one space (just type in one space). This is helpful even if you use single spaces. Double spaces can easily infiltrate posts.

5. Know your problem words.

If you struggle with your/you’re, they’re/their/there, or similar troublesome words, make a point to search for those words after you’ve written your post. The more often you’re forced to deal with those words, the better you’ll learn their proper usage and placement, meaning you’ll spend less time while writing trying to figure out if you mean “affect” or “effect.” Whenever I need a quick answer about usage, I’ll search Grammar Girl for the answer.

6. Reformat Your Formatting

Ultimately, the formatting of your post is left to your stylistic preferences, but the most-read posts online tend to have at least three items in common:

• Short paragraphs
• Subheads
• Bulleted lists

Re-read your post and see what formatting changes you could make to help with better online readability.

7. “Omit needless words” and “Eschew obfuscation.”

These are two classic words of editorial admonition. Re-read your post and see what words aren’t necessary and which ones may confuse a majority of your readers. Ruthlessly delete or replace them. Say what you need to say. No more. No less. Don’t use a big word when a small one will do. It’s not about finding the impressive word; it’s about finding the right word.

What would you add to this list? Or, which of these issues tends to plague you the most?