Many people can sit through a scary movie without breaking a sweat, and still be afraid
of… graaaaaaammar.
Too much?
A lot of us worry there’s some goblin out there, poised over our writing with a red
pen, ready to slash it to bits.
We don’t have to live in fear of the grammar goblins, though, because the editing stage
of the Writing Process is doable for everyone,
not just people who already feel super-confident with grammar, style, and formatting.
By learning more about how editing works, we can see grammar for what it is: a way to
help us all share meaning.
We’ll talk about the editing step today, in Study Hall: Composition, presented by
Arizona State University and Crash Course.
I’m Yumna Samie, let’s get started.
Editing can create a lot of pressure: after all, it’s usually the last stage before
we deliver a writing project to its readers.
It’s good to wait until we’ve done all the other steps in the Writing Process first,
since we might make major changes.
The feelings of final-step pressure can be tough.
Many of us feel like we’re bad at editing, or like we’re going to be reprimanded for
small errors in our grammar or formatting.
But one thing to realize is that nearly everyone already gets /lots/ of grammar choices correct
in their writing.
Think about it: people probably understand what you’re writing most of the time, from
book reports to notes passed in class.
Some grammar knowledge is already in your brain.
We don’t have to become professional editors of everyone’s work, just our own:
editing is really preparing our texts for readers based on their expectations
for our writing.
Before we get into editing techniques, though, let’s break down the kinds of editing changes,
which fall into one of three categories:
Grammar, Style, or Format.
A Grammar, in general, is the system and structure of a language.
Grammar editing focuses on making our text obey the system’s rules for making meaning.
After all, if you and I use totally different punctuation and word order, we won’t understand
each other.
As long as a group of people agree on a grammar, it’s meaningful, so in some contexts, like
texting, there are grammatical meanings for things like emojis.
A grammar isn’t valuable when it’s used just to make people feel like outsiders, or
to enforce one set of rules as “more intelligent” than another.
Grammar in the editing stage should be focused on communicating with the people who will
read our work, our audience.
While there are many grammar rules, there are contexts where they matter less, like
conversational English, and matter more,
like a cover letter to important strangers at a company.
Another thing to watch for in our writing is patterns of error.
If our grammatical mistakes fall into only a few categories,
we can just learn a couple of rules and check for those few things each time we edit.
Researching why a grammar choice is considered wrong can be simple: a teacher, an online
search, or even a workplace writing guide can all shed light.
Finding patterns won’t catch every error -- we do have one-off issues and typos.
But we can cut down the error count quickly when we pay attention to (or ask about) patterns.
We’ll talk more about how to find these patterns, but let’s discuss another aspect
of editing that is often lumped into grammar, Style.
Writing style, much like fashion, results from a combination of outside expectations
and personal flair.
Style uses word choice, punctuation, and sentence structure to try and connect with readers
in ways they’ll understand, but that are also varied and engaging.
Style is sometimes personal, but it also has to do with context, which includes the genre,
or kind of writing, the audience reading it, and the usual level of formality
for these genres.
Context can be hard to pin down, so here are four ways to consider
style in our work as we edit.
Be rhetorical.
We’ll talk about rhetoric later in Study Hall: Composition,
but for our purposes today, editing rhetorically means thinking about who will read our writing
and whether the language we used will work for them.
Be impactful.
We’ll try to make our style choices align with our goals.
We use shocking words when we want to shock our audience, or use soft, comforting words
when we want to dull the bad news.
Be consistent.
Style is often a series of choices, but if we choose inconsistently,
the work can look sloppy.
We won’t use one nickname for our character for half the book and then switch to a different
one without warning for the other half.
That’s confusing!
Be yourself.
While we do want to connect with our audience, there will be times when we stick with the
way we would naturally say something.
For instance, here at Study Hall we opt for a more conversational than textbook tone in
our videos.
Lastly, let’s talk Formatting.
Like style, format relates to context, and like grammar, it relies on mutually-agreed-upon
rules to exist.
Formatting includes details like headings, citations, font sizes, and more.
It’s specific to the kind of writing we’re doing.
If we didn’t include a salutation in a work email, we might be considered rude,
but including one every time you send a text message seems … wrong.
Formatting a resume will have different rules compared to formatting a Facebook post, and
knowing the difference depends on finding examples to follow.
To understand how to edit formatting, let’s check out a Writer in Action.
Lester’s internship at Congresswoman Metz’s office includes
writing policy briefs for her team.
He’s never written a policy brief, so he heads to the internet to find examples.
He sees some that are 3 pages long, some that are 15, some with bolded sections and others
with italics and subscripts highlighted in green.
Overall, he sees that they all have summary and recommendation sections, so he knows to
include those.
He also goes to experts in this field, maybe the Chief of Staff or the Congresswoman’s
communication team.
And he asks, “does the office have a favorite format for policy briefs or an example of
a strong one?”
If they say, “just make the headings clear so it’s easy to scan,” Lester may not
have as much editing for format.
If they hand him a 30-item list of painstaking guidelines, including when to use square versus
circular bullet points… well, he might be working on the editing stage for a while.
Even if he spends a long time checking the dimensions of every photo to make sure they’re
exactly square, certain rules will become automatic, so editing for format
will take less time.
When he attends meetings, he’ll see how the strategic use of bold face really helps
the Congresswoman skim for details.
His understanding of the uses of policy briefs will improve his writing even as he speeds
up the process.
Lester is a Writer in Action!
The work of editing is a combination of grammar, style, and formatting changes.
Making these changes isn’t about labeling the writing “bad” or “good,”
it’s about making it fit our context and reach our readers.
When we use appropriate grammar, format, and style for our genre and audience,
we can convey our points more efficiently and convincingly.
We’ll talk more about identifying context and deciding whether and how to conform to
it in later videos.
We can use three techniques, among others, to edit our work.
We recommend reading backwards, reading out loud, and using an outside editor.
Reading backward sentence by sentence can help us see our words with new eyes,
rather than skimming and sliding past errors because the piece is so familiar.
One of the great things about reading backwards is that we don’t have to immediately solve
everything, or memorize a book of grammar rules.
Instead, as we read, we can circle anything that looks strange to us or that we think
might be wrong or inconsistent.
We do this for the whole document, and then return to the sections we circled.
Rather than worrying too much about what is grammatically wrong, we just rewrite the sentence,
aiming for a new sentence that says what we meant, but sounds better to us.
We can try this multiple times until we rewrite in a way that works for us.
You can use this for style and formatting concerns too.
If your boss has pointed out that you need to use “we” instead of “I” or double,
not single quotation marks, you can read backwards looking for that particular issue.
Another way to edit is to try reading out loud.
This can be by yourself or with a friend who can also weigh in on how your piece sounds.
Out loud, most of us put an unconscious rhythm and flow on sentences.
The ones that make us stumble or lose our breath are often sentences that could use
some editing.
Reading out loud works whether you read in order or combine it with reading backwards;
in either case, your brain may not skip over as many things.
Reading out loud and reading backwards are sometimes useful for people who aren’t native
speakers of a language.
Some sentences “sound okay” but have major meaning concerns.
Using both techniques can activate our brains in two ways, aural and verbal, and increase
our odds of catching mistakes.
Having someone read along with us and say when they’re confused can also help.
Sometimes, we’ll have an important or especially detailed writing project, or we’ll have
looked at the project way too much ourselves.
In those cases, we may hire a professional editor.
While it’s often not okay to hire an editor for a school project,
we might hire a professional editor for an important piece of writing at work.
If a professional isn’t in the budget, don’t panic.
Consider asking a friend or peer who’s writing something similar if they want to exchange
their papers to do a check for formatting, grammar, and style.
As we’ve seen throughout this video, editing can be complicated,
and because we aren’t advocating one set of rules for every circumstance,
it feels like a lot to learn.
However, we’ve been learning grammar for as long as we’ve known how to write
and even speak.
We already understand multiple writing contexts well enough to format and use style well without
even thinking about it.
For the stuff we don’t know yet, we can learn it through reading and focusing on well-regarded
examples of that kind of writing.
Most of us won’t be the best at editing at first; every time we edit, we get better.
The grammar goblins may still dance with glee if they catch us with a misplaced comma.
But we can ask, “did you understand what I was saying?
What made you confused?” and stare those goblins down.
Next time, we’re pivoting from the writing process into the interesting work of incorporating
other people’s words into our own writing effectively.
Thanks for watching Study Hall: Composition,
which is produced by Arizona State University and the Crash Course team at Complexly.
If you liked this video and want to keep learning with us here in Study Hall, be sure to subscribe.
You can learn more about ASU and the videos produced by Crash Course
in the links in the description.
See you next time!