Making Edits to Writing
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Basics on the topic Making Edits to Writing
Do you want to know how to make your writing better before submitting it? Learn about strategies for making edits to your writing through our video, activities and editing practice worksheets!
Making Edits to your Writing – Introduction
Making edits, revising and proofreading are stages of writing that happen after you write your first draft. Today we will talk about making edits.
In process of the making edits phase of the writing strategy we add more words, phrases, transitions, details and information. We can also remove some words or phrases or replace them with more suitable ones.
Editing a paper or an essay helps your writing to be more engaging for the reader.
Making Edits to Writing – Process
You might be wondering: which strategy is recommended to make editing easier? To remember, what you should do when making edits to your writing, you can use the acronym ARMS. ARMS stands for add, remove, move, and substitute. You can use ARMS as an editing checklist when revising your next essay.
Let’s have a look at each of the ARMS components in detail using examples of editing a paragraph.
When making edits to a paragraph, the first thing writers focus on, is adding more words, phrases, transitions, details and information, to make sure the writing is coherent and provides enough details on the topic. To practise, read this paragraph and think what we can add to it:
Many people spend too much time on their phones. This can cause sleep problems. Many children spend more than 5 hours a day looking at the phone screen before bed.
Let’s add more details to this paragraph, to make sure the topic is properly covered. We can also add reasons to explain why spending too much time on your phone can cause problems.
Many people spend too much time on their phones and other electronic devices. When we use phones right before bedtime, it can cause sleep problems. Many children spend more than 5 hours a day looking at the phone screen. Bright light from the screen sends a signal to our brain that it is still daytime and we don’t need to sleep.
During the stage of writing when we make edits, we also need to remove anything that is not useful, or that is repetitive. In the paragraph above, the word phone is repeated three times, so we can remove one.
Many people spend too much time on their phones and other electronic devices. When we use phones right before bedtime, it can cause sleep problems. Many children spend more than 5 hours a day looking at the screen. Bright light from the screen sends a signal to our brain that it is still daytime, and we don’t need to sleep.
Now we can move anything that might make a paragraph flow better. In the example paragraph, we need to move sentences that talk about sleep together:
Many people spend too much time on their phones and other electronic devices. Many children spend more than 5 hours a day looking at the screen. When we use phones right before bedtime, it can cause sleep problems. Bright light from the screen sends a signal to our brain that it is still daytime and we don’t need to sleep.
Finally, writers look for things to substitute. This means that a writer should replace repeated words with synonyms. We will need to replace the words many and spend. Sometimes, we need to rewrite sentences when adding synonyms to make them flow better.
Many people spend too much time on their phones and other electronic devices. It is common for children to have more than 5 hours of screen time per day. When we use phones right before bedtime, it can cause sleep problems. Bright light from the screen sends a signal to our brain that it is still daytime and we don’t need to sleep.
It can be useful to read your essay out loud when making edits, because it helps you notice mistakes and repeated words.
Additional Information about Making Edits to Writing
Here are some more tips for making edits to writing:
- When editing an informative essay, it is important to consider the proper amount of details, evidence and examples.
- When editing a body paragraph for style in an informative essay, you need to make sure the information is easy to understand for the reader.
- When editing a narrative essay the writer should include details like who, what, where, when and how, to make the story more exciting.
- While editing an argumentative essay, a writer should include enough evidence to base their argument on.
- When editing for form, a writer focuses on the structure of an essay.
- When editing the overall structure of your essay, you should make sure it has a clear introduction, body and conclusion.
Making Edits to Writing – Summary
During the stage in the writing process when the writer makes edits, they add more details, words, phrases, information and sometimes removes things. The acronym ARMS helps us to remember what we should look for while editing. First, we should add details or information. Then, we can remove words that are not useful. Next, we move sentences to make the text flow better. Finally, we substitute words or phrases for better ones.
| A | R | M | S |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add more details. | Remove words that are not useful. |
Move sentences to make the text flow better. |
Substitute words or phrases for better ones. |
Now you know which steps to follow when making edits to your written work. Need more practice? Watch our video and try our activities and worksheets!
Frequently Asked Questions about Making Edits to Writing
Transcript Making Edits to Writing
Ah, it's another day in the office for the intern, Benji! He's almost ready to publish his first article, but it needs a little more work. To make his writing stronger, Benji needs help with editing writing. When we talk about editing our writing, we are simply adding more details, words, phrases or information, and sometimes removing things. This helps make your writing stronger and more engaging for the reader. ‘ARMS’ can help you when editing your writing! No Benji, not arms like that! We are talking about the acronym, ‘ARMS’! ‘ARMS’ helps with editing writing, where we add more words, phrases, transitions, details, or information, remove information, words or phrases that are not useful, move sentences or words and substitute words or phrases for better ones. Here is one paragraph of Benji's writing; let's use 'arms' and see how we can edit and improve it! So far, Benji has typed: ‘Mindfulness is calming. It helps you focus. It also helps balance your hormones. It also helps you to identify your feelings. There are lots of reasons why it calms you!’ Let's start with things we can add. We see a lot of short sentences, which means Benji hasn't added many details, so we can add the conjunction ‘because’ after 'calming', and then give detail for why mindfulness is important. We also see Benji hasn't given reasons why these things are important, so we can also add a reason. Let's add 'identifying your feelings makes you a more self-aware person' here, so the reader will know why it's important. Now let's look at what we can remove, and remove anything that is not useful, or is repetitive. Can you see anything we could remove? The word ‘also’ is repeated twice in the paragraph so let's remove this one here. Now, let's move anything that might make the paragraph flow better. Sometimes it helps to move sentences. Since ‘focus’ and ‘feelings’ are more closely connected than hormones, we should move this sentence, and switch this sentence with this one! Finally, let's look at words or phrases we can substitute. We often want to swap repeated words for synonyms or better vocabulary choices. Can you find a word we might want to swap in the paragraph? ‘Help’ is repeated a lot, so let's swap some uses of 'help' with synonyms! Let's swap this help for 'assists', and this help for 'aids with the balance of' Sometimes, you need to rewrite sentences when adding synonyms to make them flow better. Well, it looks like Benji is making some great edits, so let's review! Remember, when editing writing, we are simply adding more details, words, phrases or information, and sometimes removing things. To edit writing: add more words, phrases, transitions, details, or information, remove information, words or phrases that aren't useful, move sentences or words and substitute words or phrases for better ones. The acronym ‘ARMS’ can help you remember the steps for editing. "Ahem!" "Not yet, Benji!" "Oh, you eager pup! We still need to edit this."
Making Edits to Writing exercise
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Define the acronym ARMS.
HintsThe choice for R should be the opposite of the choice for A.
We can reorder words or sentences to improve our writing. This is what the M stands for.
SolutionAdd more words, phrases, transitions, details or information.
Remove information, words or phrases that are not useful.
Move sentences or words.
Substitute words or phrases. -
Substitute new words.
HintsIt is a good idea to replace words that repeat too many times with synonyms. A synonym is a word that means exactly or almost the same as the first word.
Which words are synonyms for help?
Think about the overall text, would forces be too strong a word here?
SolutionIt is a good idea to replace words that repeat too many times with synonyms. In the original text, the word helps is repeated three times, so it is good to substitute this with synonyms such as aids and assists.
- Mindfulness is calming because it helps you to focus. It also aids with the balance of your hormones. It assists you to identify your feelings. Identifying your feelings makes you a more self-aware person. There are a lot of reasons why it calms you!
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Remove unnecessary words.
HintsYou should remove anything that is not useful, or repetitive. Do you see any words that repeat too many times?
Read the sentences carefully. Would they still make sense if the words were removed?
There are three words that should be removed.
SolutionThe words really and also were repeated so these can be removed. We don't need to remove the word live as the text would not make sense without this word. Below, you can reread the edited text.
Orangutans are apes that live in the rainforests of South-East Asia. They have really long arms. They live in trees and swing from branch to branch. They use leaves to build nests to sleep in.
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Add additonal text.
HintsThink of what makes amazing weather. Is unbearably hot or freezing cold pleasant in summer or winter?
What is a more dramatic way of saying something is very beautiful?
What are some descriptions you can add about things to do in the cities of Florence and Siena?
The Uffizi gallery is located in Florence and the Duomo di Siena cathedral is located in Siena.
SolutionThe text in bold shows the added details.
Tuscany is a region in central Italy. It is breathtakingly beautiful. The weather is fantastic, sunny and hot in the summer and mild in the winter. There is a lot of history and art to see and the food is delicious. There are many places to visit in Tuscany. You can start by going to Florence and see amazing art at the Uffizi Gallery. After that, you can head south towards Siena and visit the cathedral (Duomo di Siena).
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Remove unnecessary words.
HintsYou should remove anything that is not useful, or repetitive. Do you see any words that repeat?
Read each sentence carefully. Would it make sense if the word or words were removed?
Only one word should be removed.
SolutionThe word also has been removed from the second sentence because this word was repeated twice in two sentences and was not needed both times.
Mindfulness is calming because it helps you to focus. It helps balance your hormones. It also helps you to identify your feelings. Identifying your feelings makes you a more self-aware person. There are lots of reasons why it calms you!
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Substitute new words.
HintsIt is better to use higher-level words than really or very when possible. Do you see anywhere really or very can be replaced?
It is a good idea to replace words that repeat too many times with synonyms. Do you see any words that repeat a lot?
Since the topic of this text is very dramatic, it is better to use strong language.
Solution- It is better to use higher-level words than really or very when possible. These words were replaced with a better fit.
- Words that were repeated too many times were also replaced with synonyms.
- Since the topic of this text is very dramatic, stronger language (best vs. sometimes, tremendous vs. really big) was used when possible.
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