As much as 81% of the Americans want to write a book. However, few of them realize that every good book needs impeccable editing. There isn’t a bigger sign of amateurism than a book that has glaring spelling mistakes and unacceptable punctuation errors. Needless to mention, editing is a crucial aspect of producing a quality piece of work – whether it is for individual or business purposes.

Knowing the significance of editing and its direct impact on the quality of final work produced, here are the 4 essential steps that must be undertaken to edit an unfinished manuscript or a book:

Step#1 – The Close-In Writing

This is a basic method that also becomes the first draft when you write the book for the first time. Once you get done with a full day’s work of writing, regardless of whether it is fiction or non-fiction, revise and edit the work next day prior to starting out with a fresh new piece of writing. This is referred to close-in writing.

Step#2 – The Close-In Editing

Once you get over with the first draft, you revise through the entire book or manuscript from the beginning word-to-word on the computer. This step is known as close-in editing, and thus, becomes the second draft or the second time you write the book.

Step#3 – The Distance Edit (or the Hand Edit)

At this step, print a hard copy of the second draft that you obtained at the second step. From start till the end, hand-edit the entire content, scribble throughout the notes and any eliminate any blasphemies present in the manuscript. Now, make use of those hand-edited notes as references, go back to the computer-edited file and make revisions in it accordingly. This process is known as the Distance Edit, which also becomes your third draft of editing a book.

Step#4 – The Oral Edit

In the fourth stage, you print a new hard copy of the book and read it out loud. Read it to anyone present around you, whether it is your spouse or family members. It is important for you to listen to yourself while reading it. Read sentence by sentence to make sure it makes sense and is free from grammatical errors. Even if it takes several days to finalize the oral edit, do not skip this step. Take note of phrases that cause you to stumble or words that aren’t relevant, rather confusing. Take necessary measures to rewrite them and incorporate these changes in the computer file.

At F&L Translation and Interpreting Services, we provide English to Spanish translation services in addition to editing, proofreading and linguistic consulting services that are accurate and timely. Get in touch with us here or find out more about our array of services.