How to Edit Well

Dissertations are expected from all postgraduate and doctoral students. Writing a dissertation requires hard work and patience. It is quite a difficult task, considering it must be written according to the rules and regulations of the university. One of these rules is editing the papers properly before submitting them. Editing is the next important task after writing and should begin by taking a break from the latter. After a sufficient break, the brain works much faster and can spot anything wrong very fast. As a dissertation consists of many pages, reading some of them loudly is essential to make proper edits.

Doing the same gives a better perspective of what is written and helps get the content noticed. So, grammatical, language or spelling mistakes can be spotted instantly. Moreover, unrequired and redundant sentences, sentence formations and words can also be removed. The louder the students read, better are their chances of editing well. Weasel words are those which possess a tendency of being used frequently by students. These adverbs like ‘just’ and ‘very’ are quite irritating and should be removed. Sentences must be crisp and improper words should be removed. This allows ideas to come out naturally and clearly to the readers.

Students should use commas, prior to directly addressing somebody in a dialog. They can clarify this in a sentence like ‘Let’s sing, mom’ which is different from ‘Let’s sing mom.’ This way, letters don’t gobble each other unintentionally. Punctuations are generally used to convey something important to the readers and exclamation and question marks are often used in the same context. However, their unnecessary usage can make the text look odd and monotonous. Important sentences must come across effectively with the help of a good writing style and not frequent punctuations.

Making use of passive sentences is bestavoided. Using the right tenses also ensures better editing.