At Lingua Franca, Carol Saller offers some sound advice on self-editing.* You should read what she has to say, and also the useful comments on the post, because the War on Editing is leaving you alone and unprotected out there. If you don’t spot it and fix it, it probably won’t get fixed at all.

Her advice there is all good. Unless there’s a gun at your head, take a break after you finish a draft and try to come back to give it a fresh look. Get to the point. Watch out for your own tics. Beware bogus advice. So are the suggestions in the comments: Read the text out loud. Print it out and read it; people notice things on the printed page that they do not spot on a screen.

I have a few suggestions of my own.

Arm yourself with the tools for the job. Dipping into Garner on Usage and Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage will make you more knowledgeable and self-aware as a writer. Bookmark the electronic references you find most reliable and useful. (Hint: Comb Katharine O’Moore-Klopf’s Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base.)

Don’t neglect the spell-check function on the machine. It won’t protect you from the wrong word correctly spelled, but it will highlight your typos and inconsistencies in spelling proper names. Run the spell-check as the last thing you do before shipping the text.

Making some kind of outline before writing is a good idea. Another good idea is to go over the text afterward and identify the components in an outline. That will help you spot whether you have structured and organized the text effectively.

Revision is tedious and frustrating. Do it anyway.

Write a headline for your text. If you cannot summarize the main point in six to eight words, you may not have an adequate focus.

Pace while you write, or take a walk between drafts. That pushes blood up to the brain where you need it.

Coffee, tea, and water enhance self-editing; gin does not.

When you err, and you will, take correction humbly and gratefully.

*Disclosure: Ms. Saller’s post includes this endorsement: “Writers would profit from hanging out at John E. McIntyre’s blog, You Don’t Say (it’s worth climbing that pay wall). An editor at the Baltimore Sun, Mr. McIntyre provides classy entertainment educating readers on issues like these.”

Now I suppose I will have to give good value.