Top 4 Self-Editing Tips for Freelance Writers by Ladybird Inc. (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Ladybird Inc. content management podcast. Editing is a crucial aspect of writing. To produce a stellar piece, a content writer may spend more time editing a document than they would in writing it. Writing a good business article requires 35% research and idea structuring effort, 25% writing effort, and 40% editing effort. What is editing? As a content writer, editing involves improving the content written so that it appears seamless both when one reads or hears the content. Typically, editing content can involve the following. Shortening sentences and paragraphs for succinctness, rearranging paragraphs for readability, minimize the use of jargon and verbal prose, rearranging information across sections of your article, assessing if there is a missing piece that you need to include, and checking for accuracy of grammar and punctuation. Today I am going to give you four editing tips for improving any piece of content. For those of you who don't know, I've been a freelancer for more than a decade and I'm the owner of Ladybird Inc. content management, a digital content service. So here are my top four content self-editing tips. Number one, use Grammarly Premium. Grammarly Premium is a popular editing tool that allows you to improve content as per your writing goal and audience. When you paste content on Grammarly, it asks you to define the audience, which could be general or expert, the domain, which could be business, creative, or academic writing, and intent, which could be to describe, inform, or tell a story. Once you specify the writing goals, Grammarly gives suggestions on how the content can be improved for clarity, delivery, and engagement. The Premium version costs $12 a month and is billed annually. The app especially makes sense if you work alone and don't have anyone else to edit your work. Number two, the Read Aloud feature on MS Word. Once you've written a document, click on the Review tab on your Microsoft Word file, and on the left side, you will see a Read Aloud option. Click on that to hear your content read aloud by the software. I've found that oftentimes what the eyes miss, the ears will catch. You will invariably find grammatical slip-ups in a sentence or perhaps identify the scope for rearranging your content. If you don't have the Premium version of MS Word, which has the Read Aloud feature, download any reader app. The editing tip number three is switch your reading device. Sometimes you work on an article for a long time but don't quite get it right. Reading what you have written can make you blindsided. One way to detect these blind spots is to read the content on another device. I usually write content on my computer, and if I'm not convinced that I've got the flow right, I read the article on my mobile. This has helped me often to identify the ways in which I can improve content. And final tip number four, check on Copyscape for plagiarism. When you research content online, there is always a risk that the words go straight from what you have read to your article. To check if your content is plagiarism-free, use Copyscape Premium. You can renew your Copyscape Premium subscription for $10, and you pay about 10 cents for every 900 words verified. So there you have it. Four simple self-editing tips to help you create that near-perfect piece of content as a freelance writer. Follow our blog ladybirdinc.net for more tips on content writing and making a living as a freelancer. Until next time, this is Riha Gaur, signing off.