A Professional Guide to Editing Your Own Writing*: *Or Anyone Else's

by Joe Wisinski

You’ve finished writing a book or story, and that’s great. But now it’s time for the next step. Contrary to some opinion, the next step is not publishing your work. It’s not even sending it to an editor. The next step is self editing, and that’s what this book teaches you. You’ll learn how to tighten your writing, handle tough problems, use punctuation correctly, and much more. Chapter titles Chapter 1: Introduction to Editing Chapter 2: Preparing to Edit Chapter 3: Editing Basics Chapter 4: Tightening your Writing Chapter 5: Punctuation Chapter 6: Capitalization, Numbers, Abbreviations Chapter 7: Bold, Italics, Underlines Chapter 8: Parts of Speech Chapter 9: Three Problems Chapter 10: The Editor/Writer Relationship Chapter 11: Guarding Against Libel Chapter 12: Free Editing Help Web Resources

129 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 2, 2018

Reviews

[Christopher Armani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. Wisinksi focuses on bringing clarity to every sentence, a valuable lesson for every writer, and does so in a warm and inviting tone.
His example passages, combined with a variety of ways to edit them, are wonderful and enlightening.
He also covers so much more than the nuts and bolts of editing. For example, Chapter 2's discussion of how to editing ethically examines how to approach difficult passages from a range of viewpoints. Fascinating stuff.
Likewise, his chapter on the Editor/Writer Relationship is also excellent.
Highly recommend this to any author looking to hone their self-editing skills, as well as editors for hire.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly quick read with great examples and a solid review of grammar if anyone needs to brush up. I appreciate that it includes rules for both fiction and nonfiction, commentary on the differences of style manuals, and discussion of commonly accepted deviations from rules.