You will have to pick up after yourself.
Writers find themselves increasingly on their own. Because proper editing is time-consuming and expensive, publications and publishers have significantly diminished — or outright eliminated — editing staffs. Those who remain are overworked. As a practical matter, your self-editing might turn out to be the only significant editing you get.
All this said, it is still the case that a writer is not necessarily the best judge of their own work. You have a sense in your head of what you meant to say, but a reader may come to a completely different understanding. Adopting the approach of an editor for your own work can give you some protection.
To do that, you have to understand that there are several kinds of editors, and you will need to know how to function as each one.
You will start as your own developmental editor, thinking through possible approaches to your subject and deciding which will be most effective. You’ll work out the focus, the main thing that you want your text to say, and what components you’ll need to carry that out. You may well go through a series of drafts. Read your draft aloud; that will highlight awkwardness and infelicities.
(Here’s a tip: Unless you are desperately pressed by a deadline, you need to walk away from your text between drafts. Have a coffee. Have a smoke. Go for a walk. If you can leave it for a day or two, all the better. It will look different when you come back to it, and you will see more clearly what needs to be done.)
Once you have a draft that you think is ready, you will become your own line editor. You will ask whether that text had the focus you imagined it had; does it say one single clear thing? Can you say in one sentence what your main point is? If not, perhaps you’re unclear on what your main point is. You will look at the structure to see whether it is adequate to the purpose, and you will question whether the organization within that structure makes any sense and can be easily followed. You’ll also check to see that everything is properly sourced and attributed.
(Here’s a tip: If you didn’t work from an outline at the developmental stage, make one now. Not the I. A. 1. a. outline from high school. Make a list of the subtopics under your main topic, paragraph by paragraph if necessary. Do all the parts contribute? Are they arranged in an order that makes it easy for the reader to follow? Would it be better to rearrange the order?)
At the next stage you will be your own copy editor. You will check for factual accuracy throughout. You will establish that the spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage throughout are reliable and in an appropriate register. Don’t be shy about making use of a dictionary, Bryan Garner’s Garner’s Modern English Usage, and Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. If there is a house style to which you are meant to conform, conform to it.
(Here’s a tip: If there is some fact — name, date, whatever — that you think you know, look it up. If there’s a point of grammar or usage that you think you have under control, look it up. Proper editors know that they don’t know everything and are forever looking things up. They don’t trust their own memories, so neither should you.)
You’re nearly there, ready to be your own proofreader. Read over your text, word by word; doing it aloud may help you focus. Look for repeated words (the the), dropped words, garble, inconsistencies in typography, any other blemishes.
(Here’s a tip. Run the spell-check as the last thing you do before submitting the text. It will flag common misspellings, typographical errors, and inconsistencies in the spelling of names. But do not trust it too much. It will not help you with the wrong word correctly spelled, and English is crawling with homonyms. You will need to know whether you mean to say premier or premiere, because your spell-check won’t help you.)
And one final caution. There will be errors. There will be things you overlooked, embarrassing things. That you can produce an error-free text is an illusion, and someone will always be ready to point out the deficiencies in yours. This is how editors learn humility. So will you.
John Early McIntyre has been a professional editor for nearly 40 years, more than 32 of them at The Baltimore Sun, where he has headed the copy desk. John earned an undergraduate degree in English from Michigan State University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a master’s degree in English from Syracuse University, where he was a university fellow. John has taught copyediting at Loyola University Maryland since 1995. A charter member of the ACES: The Society for Editing, he served two terms as its president. John has presented workshops on writing and editing at conferences and publications in the United States and Canada.
Mary Jo (“MJ”) Courchesne is the owner and principal consultant of Gryphon Publishing Consulting. A publishing veteran with more than 20 years of experience in trade, academic, and direct-response publishing, she has spent nearly two decades specializing in licensing, subsidiary rights, and permissions. MJ is a frequent and polished presenter on licensing and copyright. When it comes to intellectual property, she firmly believes that everyone from authors to publishers to corporations should know their rights. To that end, MJ instructed in the George Washington University’s Masters in Publishing program for 13 years, first for 11 years as adjunct professor for a course titled Editorial Content, Rights, and Permissions and subsequently as lecturer in a course on copyright. She currently serves on the Board of Experts for the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors and is a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association and the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators. MJ has also held memberships with other publishing organizations such as the American Society of Picture Professionals and Washington Publishers.
Like most of you, I have a lot of thoughts about recent events that have centered on race and equality. I’ve read many stories about how this is changing the face of media and wondered how it would affect my work.
Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and journalist living at the Jersey Shore. She worked as a reporter and copyeditor for Gannett before launching her full-time freelance business in 2005. Her work has been published in Parents, New Jersey Monthly, Prevention, Woman’s Day, SheKnows, and Healthline.
As a writing coach at the Agile Writer Workshop, I meet a lot of people who want to write a memoir or an autobiography. They usually have a story to tell, and it’s usually pretty personal. I always encourage them to write a memoir rather than an autobiography. Autobiographies are usually reserved for famous or infamous people. These new writers often have a harrowing story, or they’ve lived through a difficult time, and their friends tell them “you should write a book.”
Greg Smith is a writing coach, editor, and publisher. He founded the Agile Writer Workshop in 2011 with the mission of finding a method to help beginning writers complete a first draft in 6 months. The Agile Writer Method is based on the writings of experts in mythology, screenwriting, psychology, and project management. His seminars on the Agile Writer Method have informed and delighted thousands of writers, scholars, and university students. Agile Writer authors have written over 50 first draft novels and 10 published novels. Greg is a developmental editor for novelists and memoirists. He also coaches authors through the self-publishing maze. Greg runs the popular Agile Readers Book Club where new writers can get a beta read from a dozen or more readers.
Dana Sitar has been writing and editing for digital media since 2011, most recently as a copy editor for fintech and personal finance. She trains journalists, writers, and editors on writing for the web through sessions at the annual ACES editors’ conference, Utah Valley University, online courses, and private trainings. Dana has written about work and writing in digital media for publications including the New York Times, HuffPost, a column for Inc. Magazine, and dozens of writing and content marketing blogs. As a branded content editor for The Penny Hoarder, Dana managed a team of writers, editors, and social media experts to create multimedia branded content to help advertisers reach an audience of 12 million across platforms including social media, email, blog, and video.
Barbara McNichol is a nonfiction editor, who works with authors, speakers, and business professionals to add power to their pen through the written word. Barbara wrote Word Trippers: The Ultimate Source for Choosing the Perfect Word When It Really Matters. She offers helpful writing tips weekly and a course to take your writing and editing to the next level: “WordShops: Strengthen Everything You Write.”
I run three different websites with slightly different WordPress themes: my 
Jake Poinier made the leap into freelance writing and editing in 1999 after a decade of positions in the publishing industry, giving him key insights from both sides of the desk. As the founder and owner of Boomvang Creative Group, he has worked with a diverse array of Fortune 500 and small businesses, consumer and trade magazines, and independent authors. Jake is committed to helping freelancers improve their businesses and shares his knowledge and experiences frequently as a speaker at industry conferences, through webinars, and on his blog.
Much of the spoken language slides into our writing, but at times the words we say aren’t the exact fit for what we mean. Check your intention every time!