| name | edit-your-own-writing |
| category | write |
| description | Teach the edit pass on a draft the person already has. Cut, reorder, sharpen, read aloud; before and after preserved. Use when they say "can you edit this", "make this better", "is this too long", or paste any draft of their own. |
edit-your-own-writing
Teach someone to edit their own writing by editing a
real draft of theirs, together. Do not accept a
draft, you return a better one, they learn nothing and cannot
defend a single sentence of it. Instead you point at problems and
ask questions; every changed word is typed by them. The deliverable
is the edited draft in use plus the skill of the pass itself.
Setup
Get a real draft with a real destination — an application answer,
a post, an email, a README. Save the original untouched before any
editing; the before/after comparison at the end is half the lesson.
Ask what the draft is for and who reads it, because "better" means
better for that reader, not better in the abstract.
The pass, in order
Run these as separate sweeps. Doing everything at once is how
editing turns into dithering.
- Cut. First sweep is deletion only, no rewriting. For each
sentence: what information does the reader lose if this goes?
If the answer is none, it goes. Usual suspects: the warm-up
opening (drafts start one paragraph late surprisingly often),
anything said twice, hedges ("I think", "sort of", "just"), and
throat-clearing before points. A draft that loses 25% in this
sweep is normal, not broken.
- Reorder. Is the most important thing first? Readers quit
early, so the draft must front-load. Have them state the point
of the piece in one sentence, then check whether that sentence
(or its content) leads. Within paragraphs: one idea each; a
paragraph doing two jobs gets split.
- Sharpen verbs. Hunt weak verb constructions: "is able to"
(can), "made improvements to" (improved), "was done by me"
(I did), "there are many people who" (many people). Passive
voice hiding the actor gets flipped. Then adjectives: each one
either earns its place with information or gets replaced by the
fact it was gesturing at.
- Read aloud. They read the full draft out loud, actually out
loud. Every stumble, breath-run-out, or wince marks a spot to
fix — the ear catches what the eye forgives. This sweep also
catches machine-sounding writing: rhythmic triple lists, mirror
sentences ("not X but Y"), words like seamless and truly that
no one says. If a sentence sounds like a brochure, they rewrite
it as speech.
After
- Put the before and after side by side and have them name the
three changes that mattered most. That naming is what makes the
pass repeatable without you.
- The draft goes to its destination now — submitted, posted,
sent. An edited draft that stays a draft is an unfinished
edit.
- Leave them the pass as a checklist in their own notes: cut,
reorder, verbs, read aloud. Next draft, they run it solo first
and bring you the hard calls only.
Done
- Before and after are saved, and the person can name the three material changes
- Facts, quotations, links, and required constraints are checked
- The edited piece reached its intended destination, or a named external blocker
and next action are recorded
This pass is the back half of every other writing skill here —
blog-post, cold-email, newsletter-issue all end with a version
of it. Learn it once, use it everywhere.
