Editing a whole piece
Real editing means checking two things on every sentence at once: how it starts and how it ends.
Here is a piece of writing with five sentences in it.
we went sledding on saturday. the hill was icy. did you go too i went down twice. my sled hit a bump and i flew off!
Read it one sentence at a time and check both ends.
| Sentence | Start | End |
|---|---|---|
| we went sledding on saturday. | needs a capital W | period is correct |
| the hill was icy. | needs a capital T | period is correct |
| did you go too | needs a capital D | needs a question mark |
| i went down twice. | needs a capital I | period is correct |
| my sled hit a bump and i flew off! | needs a capital M and a capital I | exclamation point is correct |
Notice the third row. Two sentences were run together with no mark between them, so the first job was finding where one ended.
The fixed version
We went sledding on saturday. The hill was icy. Did you go too? I went down twice. My sled hit a bump and I flew off!
The word “saturday” is still lowercase. Days of the week do take capital letters, and that rule gets a course of its own later.
Your editing checklist
- Find where each sentence starts and ends.
- Check that the first letter is a capital.
- Ask whether the sentence wants an answer or shows strong feeling.
- Put the matching mark, and only one.
- Check every I in the middle.
Your turn
Fix each line.
- “did you see the deer”
- “i saw a fox”
- “we found a nest it was empty”
Check your answers
- “Did you see the deer?”
- “I saw a fox.” or “I saw a fox!” if you were excited about it.
- “We found a nest. It was empty.”
Remember
- Check the start and the end of every sentence.
- Watch for two sentences run together.
- Check every I, wherever it sits.