Editing
Writing is a process. It is never perfect after the first attempt. The best part about writing is that there is time to go back and revise and edit the writing before it is submitted.
Editing is the icing on the cake. Once the revision step is complete, then it’s time to decorate your writing in the most appealing way possible. It is expected that the grammar, punctuation and spelling will be perfect because they are so easy to fix. While they practically go unnoticed, failure to make them perfect is a blaring mistake!
If your ideas are well founded and well organized, then don’t do them the disservice of leaving loose ends. Go over your writing with a fine-tooth comb to look for any punctuation that may be wrong, any common mistakes in grammar that should be fixed and above all, use spell check! There is absolutely no reason for spelling mistakes to exist in a document typed on the computer.
Mistakes in these areas immediately discredit the content of the writing. Just as speaking with poor grammar implies a lack of education, writing with punctuation and spelling mistakes portrays the author as uneducated. Not a good impression on a school application, job application or any of the numerous times when life calls for your ideas to be written and turned in to some person who has control over a decision directly involving your future.
While it may seem time-consuming to consider all the rules and find any or all of them in your writing, it is time well spent. Editing your writing is like running across the finish line. You don’t want to stop running before you get the job done!
Grammar
A few common errors made in subject-verb agreement and pronoun usage.
Punctuation
Tricky commas, semicolons, parentheses and dashes explained.
Spelling
Common spelling rules as well as webistes for greast spelling lists to commonly misspelled words.