From editing a wedding film to editing a blog post, the value of proficient editing skills cannot be overstated.
In particular, the latter kind of editing is now more than ever indispensable in the corporate world where clear and compelling communication is often the difference between admired professionalism and barely concealed condescension.
Whether you’re drafting marketing proposals, crafting reports, or even communicating with clients and colleagues via email, a strong editing skill means you get to convey your ideas with precision and impact.
So here are 3 tips.
Strong Grammar and Language Skills
You want to focus primarily on honing your grammar and language skills. This way, you’ll know that your business documents are free from language-related errors, for clarity.
How? Invest in grammar resources like style guides, grammar books, or online tools. Then, practice your own writing to reinforce these skills. It’s also a good idea to use online grammar checkers.
The result? Imagine you’re editing a marketing proposal, and you come across a sentence that reads: “Their services is the best in the industry.” The error here is a subject-verb agreement issue. It should be corrected to say, “Their services are the best in the industry,” an error you’ll definitely catch if you’re studious enough about grammar.
Attention to Detail
Paying attention to detail is vital for effective editing because it’s how you ensure that your business materials are free from encompassing errors – and so it means meticulously scrutinizing the document for typos, spelling errors, and inconsistencies in formatting and style.
Consider a business report with inconsistent capitalization in headings – some in title case and some in sentence case. This inconsistency will likely detract from the document’s overall quality.
There are many hacks for this. For example, create a style guide for your business or adhere to a recognized one; this way, you maintain consistency in formatting, punctuation, and writing style.
When proofreading, read the document multiple times, focusing on different elements with each pass. It’s even a good idea to enlist colleagues or fellow editors; this way, fresh eyes can help identify issues you might have missed.
Your Audience and Purpose
Understanding your audience and purpose is more than just fixing errors; it’s about tailoring content to suit their needs and expectations. Often, this means your edits should align with the communication goals of the business.
Suppose you’re editing a user manual for a software product. If the primary audience is non-technical users, you want to avoid jargon and complex technical terms.
Analyze your audience thoroughly to understand things like background, knowledge, and preferences. Then define a document’s purpose clearly, whether it’s to inform, persuade, instruct, or entertain.
You don’t want to be known as the one who can’t edit at work – enough people have been setback by such a tag that it’s a good idea to continually polish up on your editing skills.
