Editing Out Loud: ROW80

Last Thursday and Friday, I spoke to five high school classes--two freshmen Honors English classes and three senior English classes--about Self-Editing and the importance of writing.

Source

First, I told them no matter what career path they are considering... writing and effective communication skills are an absolute must. I discussed my own split-personality. As a finance major who took every elective in English and wrote for my college newspaper, I was hired at financial companies based on my technical background and writing skills. 

Then, I showcased self-editing tricks, most of which I covered here.

The best exercise was when I had them read the following out loud...

I sat down and rapped the guilt around me. 

“If you think that small quilt will make you warm you will loose your mind,” his mother sad. She went over to adjust thermometer. 

Read it in your head first. It's amazing what the brain fixes.  

Now, read it out loud. The kids were amazed how much better they picked up on the mistakes. Then, I drove the point home... spell checker wouldn't have found any of them. 

How many mistakes do you see? Hint: There are 5 incorrectly used words, one missing punctuation mark, and one word omission.

Sundays are for my A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) updates. 

I made quite a list for myself this round, which only began on a few days ago. My main goal was to spend an hour a day writing. I can proudly say I've done this since posting my goal post. Granted, it was spent on writing some blog posts and finishing up my speech, but it definitely re-engaged my writing brain.

Plus, I'm working on a big, last edit. Overall, I feel like it's a good start to the last round of 2014.