Editing or proofreading any document by eliminating the mistakes if commonly known as editing, which is done mainly by editorial services in magazines, journals or books. Editing services are also offered by many online and offline companies for a specific amount in correspondence to the number of words. Proofreading and editing is not an easy work and requires a lot of expertise in the English language or the language it is written. Paper editing services are not hard to come by but the authenticity and the originality of the paper editing service needs to be confirmed before giving the relevant document for editing and revising.
Below are some useful tips on editing a paper or document:
- Never use the 'Enter' key twice after a paragraph. It denotes an 'empty paragraph' which is not favourable in a document. It suffices to use just one space between two paragraphs.
- ne should not muck up a document written by another person while editing. The font styles and size should not be changed much. The originality of the work should be preserved.
- nly grammatical mistakes like spelling errors or wrongful use of punctuations should be altered. The meaning of a sentence or phrase should remain intact. Quotes should not be tampered with if it can be helped.
- The margins and bullets or numbering should be carefully placed. Wrong or disorganised margins can be unappealing to the reader. This editing should be given emphasis.
- Bold, underline and italics tools can be only used to make the document more attractive if it is bland. Making every second word bold or in italics will confuse the reader. These tools are only for highlighting major points and should be employed only when necessary.
EDITING AND REVISING WORKSHEETS
Worksheets are prepared usually by teachers and professors to help them organize a teaching pattern throughout the term or even for a week or so. Worksheets are also provided to students at an elementary stage for learning language, mathematics and other basic things such as colours, shapes, animals, etc. These worksheets ate made colourful and attractive for the children. However the worksheets which are used by the teacher are informative and they contain the course details and how to go about teaching them. They can be in a chart-, tabular- or flow-form, depending up on the teacher's comfort. Following are some tips on revising and editing worksheets:
FOR TEACHING PURPOSE:
- The name of the course and topic should appear at the top, in bold or in capitals. Care must be takes so as not to use a long title since it becomes distracting and sometimes even confusing.
- The layout should be adequate. The time and deadline should be highlighted.
- All sub-topics should be mentioned in short phrases and the content in each should be in bullets to appear concise. Since clarity is a necessity, conjunctions and prepositions should be avoided. Only the keywords should appear in the worksheet.
- While editing he worksheet and revising it before final submission, all grammatical errors should be checked.
- If someone is just revising a worksheet prepared by someone else, he should not change or erase words at random. They may be vital keywords for the teacher.
FOR STUDENTS:
Many elementary and middle schools prepare worksheets for the students in order to make learning easier and fun. They are appealing to them which induce hassle-free teaching and interesting learning. Editing such a worksheet should be done keeping in mind the age group of the students.
- For elementary kids, the worksheets should be colourful and contain pictures or cartoons to increase their interest and maintain it throughout the class. A drab and dull worksheet does not go well with such small children.
- ne of the main points to remember is that, there should be no grammatical mistakes. These are appalling and totally unacceptable.
- Even repetition of colours or pictures in a single worksheet is not advised.
- For mathematics worksheets, care should be taken to revise the signs and numbers, for a mistake may result in erroneous teaching.
- For middle-school worksheets, especially language, adequate space must be provided for writing the answers. Spacing of the paragraphs also helps.
- Instructions must be clearly indicated and while revising, punctuations must be properly gone through.
An individual teacher may take the help of writing and editing services to adapt to the system and learn about them but it is always recommended that the work is an individual effort. Many institutions, themselves have a department of editing service to help the staff. Editing service by freelancers is also available who get into the job to earn a few extra bucks. Whatever be the case, this is an important part of academia which is a source of income to many.
