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The Three-Stages of Editing©
By K. A. Weir
Locker 5ce Adaptation
Stage One
Once you have finished and saved your first draft then complete this stage and save again.
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Process
Pp. Ref.
70
Spell Checker

Remember spell checker is not perfect.
Canadian Spelling

You can do this manually, or by changing the settings
on your computer.
69-70
Grammar Checker

Locker 5ce
Links
http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/english_canada_spell_checke
r.html
http://www.luther.ca/~dave7cnv/cdnspelling/cdnspelling.html
Remember spell checker is not perfect.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/dictionary-articles/free-onlinegrammar.html
Stage Two
After giving draft one a rest, return to your document to do serious editing. You will need to devote considerable time to this stage.
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Process
Manual Spelling & Grammar Check

Begin this stage by reading the document through
fully once. Whatever spelling or grammar mistakes
you see, correct now. As you read the document,
circle any areas you think might need to be
addressed.
Sentences: Run-On

A sentence containing more than one thought or idea.
They make you shake your head or gasp for air
because they are so overly wordy.
Sentences: Comma Splices

Pp. Ref.
69-70
Locker 5ce
Links
Much like run-ons, these are two sentences joined by
a comma.
McGrawHill Ryerson Ltd.
http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/exercises/run-ons_ex1.htm
http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~ctl/twc/webresources/RunonSentences.
pdf
http://english.acadiau.ca/Grammar/runon.htm
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/commasplice.html
http://english.acadiau.ca/Grammar/comma.htm
http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/exercises/comma_splices_ex2
.htm
Document Created & Adapted to Locker 4ce by K. A. Weir
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7
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/620/01/
http://english.acadiau.ca/Grammar/fragment.htm
Sentences: Fragments

Incomplete thoughts.
www.ryerson.ca/writingcentre/students/handouts/slides/sentencefragmen
ts.ppt
8
Agreement: Subject/Verb
9
Agreement: Noun/Pronoun
68-69
69
11 Agreement: Plurals & Possessives
12 Parallelism
 Parallel grammatical form.
69
13 Voice: Active/Passive
 Active: strong action; Passive: use for Negative
157
Messages; Narrative Voice
14 Person: 1st/3rd


64, 67
Also, called, “Point of View.”
Primarily, use 3rd person for business writing.
15 Tone/Formality
 Criticism; Level of Formality
67-68
16 Modifiers: Dangling
 “confuse readers, because the word they modify is
68-69
17 Modifiers: Misplaced
68-69
not in the sentence”
McGrawHill Ryerson Ltd.
http://english.acadiau.ca/Grammar/s_v.htm
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/english-as-a-secondlanguage/expressions-of-quantity
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/599/01/
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/595/01/
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/SentProAgr.html
http://aliscot.com/bigdog/agreement_pa.htm
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/grammar/course/speech/1_1c.h
tm
http://www.meredith.edu/grammar/plural.htm
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cgishl/par_numberless_quiz.pl/plurals_quiz.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/01/
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/writing/Writing_Center/handouts/pdfs/
parallel.pdf
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/SentParallel.html
www.ryerson.ca/writingcentre/students/handouts/slides/Voice.ppt
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/reading/exercises/dogqz.h
tm
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-voice.htm
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LTPointOfView.html
http://www.monmouth.edu/writing_center/pdf/FirstPersonVoice.pdf
http://www.themfactor.com.au/Articles/Writing-Style-First-SecondThird-Person.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/608/2/
http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/elt/products/br_adv_emails.pdf
http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/your-audience-and-thelevel-of-formality-in-your-writing-1535549.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/597/01/
http://www.nipissingu.ca/English/HORNBOOK/dangling.htm
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/msplmod.html
http://www.nipissingu.ca/english/hornbook/MISPLACE.HTM
Document Created & Adapted to Locker 4ce by K. A. Weir
3

Confusion/Misinterpretation; word they modify is
located incorrectly in the sentence.
18 Beginnings: Subject Lines/Headings
 For all forms of messages.
62, 127
19 Beginnings: Topic Sentences
20 Word Choice: Homonyms
 Words that sound the same but have different
spellings and meanings.
21 Word Choice: Contractions

Apostrophe takes the place of missing letters.
22 Word Choice: Etc.
 “Avoid ending a list with etc. It is more emphatic to
end with an example, and in most contexts readers
will understand that the list is not exhaustive. When
you don’t wish to end with an example, and so on is
more graceful than etc.” (From: Hacker, D. (2007). A
Writer’s Reference. (6th ed.). New York: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, p.129.)
23 Word Choice: Other
 Connotations; Jargon/Clichés; Paraphrasing;
Predications; Split Infinitives; Who/Whom & I/Me &
You/I
24 Punctuation: All

Apostrophes; Commas; Ellipses; Hyphens & Dashes;
Italics; Numbers & Dates; Parentheses; Periods;
McGrawHill Ryerson Ltd.
68-70
http://www.yorku.ca/bethune/writing/modifier.html
http://english.acadiau.ca/Grammar/mmodifier.htm
http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/best_practices_in_writing_email_
subject_lines/
http://www.web-source.net/web_development/email_marketing.htm
http://www.wordconstructions.com/articles/communications/headings
.html
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/partopic.html
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/topic.html
http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/topicsenterm.htm
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym.html
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
http://www.english-zone.com/grammar/hom1.html
http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blgr_contractions.htm
http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2006/04/dont_
use_contra.html
http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/department/docs/punctuation/no
de20.html
http://www.princeton.edu/communications/services/editorial/printgui
de/
http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/latinabbrev.htm
http://www.lupinworks.com/roche/pages/wordChoice.php
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/conndeno.html
http://owlet.letu.edu/grammarlinks/diction/diction2d.html
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/subjpred.html
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/splitinfin
itives
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/choosing-to-use-who-andwhom.html
http://www.btb.gc.ca/btb.php?lang=eng&cont=033
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/punct.html
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/rvpunct.html
Document Created & Adapted to Locker 4ce by K. A. Weir
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Quotation Marks; Square Brackets; Underlining
25 Punctuation: Semi-colons

Use between two complete thoughts.
26 Punctuation: Colons

A list follows.
27 Punctuation: Quotation Marks


Make sure your punctuation goes inside the quotation
marks, i.e.,”
When a citation follows a quotation, punctuation
ends as, sentence ending (citation).”
28 Transitions: Sentence to Sentence

To check for flow: Pull two sentences from
anywhere in the document and see, when they are out
of context, if flow of thought is happening from the
first to the second one.
29 Transitions: Paragraph to Paragraph
 To check for flow: Using the last line of the first
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/grammar/course/punctuation.ht
m
http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/assistance/writing_services/components/d
ocuments/punctuation.pdf
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/italics.htm
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/StudyZone/410/grammar/colons.htm
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/colons1.htm
http://www.queensu.ca/writingcentre/handouts/Colonsandsemicolons.
pdf
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/GramCols.html
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/colon.html
http://grammar.about.com/od/punctuationandmechanics/a/semicolond
ash.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/qmarks.html
http://www.nipissingu.ca/english/hornbook/QUOTATIO.HTM
http://www.sfu.ca/~etiffany/teaching/phil120/transitions.html
http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/transitionterm.htm
http://www.sass.uottawa.ca/writing/kit/grammar-transitional.php
http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/trans1.html
http://www.mun.ca/writingcentre/docs/OnLineTransitionalWords.pdf
paragraph, and the first line of the second paragraph,
ask yourself if flow of thought is happening from the
first to the second one.
30 Transitions: Thought to Thought
 To check for flow: Take any section from your
paper, and identify the thought being discussed; now
as you read through this section, ask yourself if the
flow is consistent with the development of a thought,
and with the overall context of the paper’s argument.
31 Transitions: Flow of Paper

To check for flow: As if you are drawing a line from
top to bottom, is there a consistent form of
development of your idea or argument? Have you
gotten somewhere by the time you reach the end of
your paper?
McGrawHill Ryerson Ltd.
Document Created & Adapted to Locker 4ce by K. A. Weir
5
32 Conciseness
 Improving Paragraphs
33 Conciseness: 5-Word Editing Rule

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/572/01/
http://www.hodu.com/concise.shtml
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/smallbusinesslearning/a/bizwritingp
j_2.htm
KW 5-Word Editing Rule
PPT Presentation
Stage Three
After you have finished the big edit of stage two, and allowed your document a good rest, proceed with stage three.
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Process
Peer Editing: Same Person/Multiple Drafts
 After you have done stages 1 & 2, ask someone, a
peer, friend, parent, or sibling, to read your paper.
Next make the suggested corrections that fit for you;
then ask the same person to read it again. They will
be able to give you feed back on areas you
improved. Did the corrections you made improve
the paper; or what still needs to be done?
35
Locker 5ce
Links
http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/assistance/writing_services/faculty_&_TAs/resources_to_s
upport_student_writing/peer_review.cfm
http://web.uvic.ca/~sdoyle/E302/Notes/Peer%20editing.html
http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/peeredit.html
Peer Editing: Different People/Multiple Drafts
 After you have done stages 1 & 2, ask someone, a
peer, friend, parent, or sibling, to read your paper.
Next make the suggested corrections that fit for you.
Then ask a different person to read your newly
edited version. This editing process sheds new light
onto an old problem; they too should be able to
identify corrections that were missed, or even have
new input on how to improve your paper.
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Read out loud

Reading out loud to yourself does many things:
First, you use more than your eyes (visual) to see the
words on the paper. Second, you use your ears
(auditory) to hear how the words sound – do they
fall logically together; are you stumbling when you
read. Finally, you use your voice and the muscles in
your mouth to speak (verbal) the words. The very
act of feeling the words on your tongue helps you to
McGrawHill Ryerson Ltd.
http://www.ucc.vt.edu/Stdysk/proofing.html
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/wpgrammarediting/ht/proofread.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/561/01/
Document Created & Adapted to Locker 4ce by K. A. Weir
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discern sounds, read “words” here, which do or do
not sound right together. The very act of using
multiple senses in re-reading your work provides
you more tools in your ability to “see” your
document.
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Rest

Nothing is better than rest. Once you have finished
stage 1, give the document a rest. When you have
finished stage 2, give it a rest. In between peer edits,
give it a rest. When you become frustrated, or just
can’t seem to find the right words, give it a rest.
Rest can be an hour long, hours long, a day long, or
more. A good rest is long enough for you to see it
with a renewed spirit, but not too long, meaning you
forget what you were writing about.
Read difficult sections backwards

If you are having difficulty with a sentence, then
read it backwards: word-for-word. You will be able
to see connections between verbs and subjects;
adjectives and nouns; objects and subjects;
independent and dependent clauses. You will be
amazed what you can find.
http://writinghood.com/writing/10-proofreading-tips-polish-your-articles-to-nearperfection/
http://www.back2college.com/writingassignments.htm
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/proofread.html
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/8-proofreading-tips-and-techniques/
http://www.lrcom.com/tips/proofreading_editing.htm
Instructor

Ask your instructor for help. Ask them to clarify
what is meant by …? Ask them to read a difficult
sentence and give you feedback on why it isn’t
working for you. Most professors will read a short
section, maybe a paragraph, and be able to give you
good feedback on flaws in your writing style. What
you do in a paragraph, you do in the whole paper.
Some professors will scan a page or more to give
you general feedback on why or why not your paper
or argument is or is not working. No professor will
give you the answer to the question. No professor
will write your paper for you. Yet, all will in some
way help you get past the difficult parts – but you
have to take the first step and ask for help.
McGrawHill Ryerson Ltd.
Document Created & Adapted to Locker 4ce by K. A. Weir