Writing research papers and academic essays are the most important method to present scientific findings to the public. Suppose what will happen when you read a scholarly article containing grammar, spelling or structuring mistakes. Of course, you will not consider the source trustworthy for your academic publication. Then, what will be the most appropriate solution to make your academic writing error-free? In a true sense, the answer to this million-dollar question is proofreading or academic editing.
Furthermore, to know the importance of editing in the writing and publication process, this article comes with a lot of useful information. This article will focus on editing skills, highlight the impact of self-editing on the writing process and give tips to improve these skills. In the end, it will also discuss certain things necessary to become good academic editors.
What Skills Should Editors Have?
The editor should know about all legal and ethical considerations of the publication process. He must have a proper knowledge about copyrighting, academic editing rules and privacy policy. Moreover, academic editing tasks greatly vary from assignment to assignment. But the most important skills that an individual must possess for good editing practices are as follows as shared by experts of best dissertation editing services:
Stylish Editing skills
These are types of academic editing skills that deal with clarification, coherency and fluency of the content. Besides, it also sorts all language issues in an academic task. For achieving these aims, the editor must identify and eliminate jargon and clichés. It cross-checks whether the content is appropriate to address the intended audience. In short, stylish academic editing skills enable editors to focus on tone and coherency related issues. For this, the editor must have all the necessary styling and formatting information.
Copy Editing skills
By definition, copy academic editing skills are those that ensure the correctness and accuracy of facts and figures used in a writing task. These skills try to locate the completeness and logical flow of information. For this, the editor must have good research skills to identify any false or partially complete information.
Structural Editing skills
Structural editing skills are those qualities of editors that help them in assessing and shaping the draft material. For structural editing, the editor must have good critical and content organising skills. The critical thinking abilities of editors help them in exploring whether the content is giving all the relevant information about a topic or not. They also help how good a critical evaluation someone has provided. Here, editors also check the plotting of thematic elements and characterisations.
Acquisition Editing skills
Acquisition editing evaluates the academic task to ensure whether it fits with the teacher’s and publisher’s guidelines or brief. Yet, the skills you require for this type of academic editing include assessing the quality of content. Good command of a subject helps in confirming the originality and significance of the information provided. It also helps in developing relationships with agents.
Consequently, the skills that an academic editor must have depend on the type and purpose of the academic task. Yet, good reading, thinking and expressing skills help editors to further improve structural, acquisition, styling and copy-editing skills.
How Can Self-Editing Improve Writing Skills?
Self-editing is a way to improve writing skills. The reason is that self-editing helps in locating your own writing mistakes. Moreover, while reading your own academic task, you can revise the structure and look for better word choice. Academic editing and self-editing in particular enable students to better structure a sentence. Following are some points that explain how self-editing help students in improving writing skills;
- Editing is a chance for writers to rate their work.
- It assists writers in figuring out their writing weaknesses.
- Self-editing improves writing skills by increasing the writer’s concentration on things to avoid for the next time.
As a big picture, self-editing has more progressive advantages. But sometimes, we also need someone’s help in editing because it is more effective in locating even minor conceptual errors.
How Can You Improve Editing And Proofreading Skills?
Meeting the requirement of a profession demands some skill development. For example, if you want to become a call representative, good verbal skills are significant for it. Likewise, if you want to be a teacher, good conceptual understanding is necessary. Besides, if you want to be an academic editor, the following editing and proofreading skills development may help you;
- Check one problem at one time
- Take multiple rounds to work on each step of proofreading
- Read loudly to listen to it as well
- Print a hard copy for a better exhibition of editing skills
- Learn grammar to better structure your sentence
- Read blogs to improve word choice
The most practical method is to revise the content as many times as you can. But every single reading must focus on eliminating the specific type of mistakes. For achieving this purpose, you can read aloud the hard copy and can even make notes on a rough draft. Besides, you can highlight different sentences that may not seem grammatically correct. In short, the more you work on minor details, the better proofreading and editing skills you will acquire.
How Do You Become An Academic Editor?
Those students who want to become good academic editors must know a few things about this profession. The role of academic editors demands a unique combination of strong academic background and working experience. A strong academic background allows individuals to exhibit strong communication skills (both written and verbal). Getting degrees from reputed universities is the best way to get familiar with the professional writing process.
Moreover, students with good academic records can better relate subject-related theories and terminologies during academic editing. Hence, a good academic record is the first step that helps a student in stepping towards the professional academic editing role. Unfortunately, fresh graduates cannot directly apply for academic editing posts. They must have spent years as a writer. As a writer, one needs to cater to several revisions a day that help them in exactly getting into the role of a proof-reader. Hence, writing experience is the second step in becoming an academic editor.
If you have planned to become an academic editor, then you should start working on developing new and polishing existing academic editing skills from today. For this, you can set a goal to attain editing skills. Once you are satisfied that you have full command on that, then move to the next step. Polishing or attaining academic editing skills first help you stand out as a writer and then help you in becoming a good academic editor.
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