I have these little mantras here at Academic Coach and this is one of them: write without fear, edit without mercy. Write quick, edit slow.
What is editing?
Let’s start with the basics. Editing is the process of re-sculpting your rough text into something that resembles an intellectual contribution. You can engage in large scale editing (macro, think structural issues) or small scale editing (micro, think sentence construction and paragraphs) and these serve distinct purposes in finalising your text.
Some writers don’t recognise editing as a distinct stage in the writing process because they are engaged in this process from the very first sentence (perfectionists). Others don’t recognise it because they have no discernible drafting process at all: writing, reading, researching, editing and polishing text is one unholy jumbled mess that is circular, unstructured and totally inefficient. Time ebbs away when we think of editing in these terms. ‘Writing’, or (properly speaking) producing a piece of finished research, becomes an interminable nightmare.
Why is editing painful?*
It is painful because if done at the correct time in your drafting process it forces you to confront reality, and that is despite your best heroic efforts the text still isn’t working. You might have come to this realisation yourself, or (more likely) you have come to this realisation because you have received feedback (criticism). Either way, this reality is inherently painful. Re-working the text is not re-working the idea necessarily and this is another reason that many lament editing. It starts to feel like this writing malarky is less Hemingway and his muse(s) and is more technical (mechanical) in nature. Less Leonardo da Vinci, and more spray painting the basement.** This can horrify the academic soul.
The joy of editing
I like editing. You are past the blank page. The hard (research) work is usually done and the joyous part of the writing process truly begins. It is here that you move from Frankenstein’s monster, to something that is quite well put together. It starts to flow. It starts to work as a piece of intellectual contribution. It stops lurching from one thought to another and starts to flow. Most importantly, it starts to make sense to someone other than you.
The guiding principle
This is the foundation of editing. It is no longer about you. It is no longer about your vision, your understanding, what you think is good and right and logical. It is about the reader. The reader! You have moved from it’s all about me to it isn’t about me at all. Regardless of what my internal narrator thinks is awesome and simple and clear, I now have to think about how someone else might encounter my work. What will make sense to them? How will they understand it?
This requires a bit of intellectual gymnastics. Hence the pain (for some).
Good editing is about structure, flow and signposts. It concerns your audience and how they will receive it. It is not about you. Your creation has left the building, flown the nest and is about to try and make its way in the world. Editing helps it to be useful to others and make a contribution to a dialogue that exists outside of your head. Embrace it: set it free.
*actual title suggested by a reader
** Paul J Silvia, How to write a lot, describes writing in these mundane terms.