Remember high school English, when the teacher pounded all of the various parts of the sentence into your head so often that you thought you’d be able to tell what a predicate was in your sleep. Years later, however, you suddenly start scratching your head and realize that you can’t remember what all of those technical English terms mean again, or how you’re supposed to use them. The idea of editing, when you start thinking about all of those technical rules, can be very daunting, but in reality editing can actually be very simple.

When you start editing, start by just making sure that all of your sentences are complete. How can you do this? Read the sentence by itself. If you can read the sentence by itself and it makes sense, then you know that you probably have all of the important parts in the sentence. If, however, you read the sentence and it seems odd, you likely have missed something. Take, for instance, these two sentences:

The house was on fire.

The house on fire.

That may seem like a very easy mistake to avoid, but when you’re in the heat of writing it’s easy to think that you wrote a complete sentence when, in reality, you were only thinking of the complete sentence. Make sure that your periods are in the right place. How can you tell? A period should go where you’d stop for emphasis or to take a breath when you’re talking. Writing something, like, this, for, instance, wouldn’t work. You’d sound like you were gasping for air. Writing something like this, for instance, would work. Editing doesn’t have to be difficult. Read what you’ve written and, if something seems off, take time to work with the words to see what sounds better.