Transcripts
1. Introduction: If you can create and edit your own writing,
then congratulations. You have a lot more opportunity available for you in the future. But let's say you're
someone right now who is capable of creating
your writing. But you feel uncomfortable
when it comes down to editing. You don't necessarily know
which parts to eliminate, which parts to keep
on how to make your writing sound more
conversational and smoother. Does that sound like you? If so, then welcome to this
beginner's class on editing. My name is Armand jewelry, the founder of our money talks, a media company which
helps engineers and entrepreneurs improve their
communication skills. Since starting or money talks, I have written a lot of
books and have worked with upcoming authors in order
to gather their ideas, formulated, and build a
digital asset of their own. And in this beginner's class, I'm going to give you a no
nonsense look into editing. You're going to
understand the difference between editing
and proofreading. You're going to learn a simple framework on
how to edit efficiently. And you're going to build the confidence to make
sure that you are hitting publish once you
are done with your piece. Does that sound
interesting to you? If so, I look forward
to seeing you inside.
2. What is Editing?: Editing is to polish
up your own writing to make it more appealing
to your consumer. Now this is not only something
that is done with writing, it's something that's done with content creation in general. Was the last time
you watch the movie. Did you ever think about
how the movie was created? What normally happens is
that the director has a couple of cameraman who are recording a whole
bunch of shots. The reason that they're
recording a whole bunch of shots is because they're
trying to gather film. But all this film is not
going to be presented to the movie goers on
the actual theater. Instead, all this
film is going to be gathered and then there's going
to be an editing portion. This is when the director I
chose with the video editors. And the director will be like, Yes, keep that scene. No, eliminate that scene. The scene, I put it
here instead of here. They are predominantly
editing with the sole intention
of making sure that the moviegoer has a
memorable experience for you as the writer. You want to make sure that your reader has an
enjoyable experience. And that is how we are editing.
3. Editing vs Proofreading: Editing and proofreading,
the same thing. No. Editing is when you are rearranging certain
parts of your content piece, you're eliminating, you're
adding on your mentally, we reading it back to see if
it sounds conversational. While with proofreading,
you typically just fixing up the spelling,
grammar, and punctuation. One of the biggest differences
between editing and proofreading is that
proofreading can be automated, which means that there's a lot
of tools and software it's coming out nowadays to help
you with proofreading. And not only that, you can
use services in order to have your content proof read right before
you hit publish. But for editing, It's a much more a personal
subjective process. And this is something
that normally author, Especially once
they're starting off, they should build
the habit of doing. Because the more that they learn how to edit their
own writing more efficiently that they speak and they write for the future. So bottom line, editing and
proofreading are different. And editing typically requires more of an interactive approach. While proofreading can
typically be automated.
4. Creating a Rough Draft: In order to edit something, you need to have content. And this is where we want
to build a rough draft. A rough draft is exactly
that. It's rough. It doesn't look pretty
it looks pretty ugly. And that's 100% fine. Because with the rough draft, we only have one goal in mind. Our goal is to get our ideas
from our mind into reality. And typically, you
shouldn't even think about starting a rough
draft until you know, a whole bunch about the topic. This is when you're
researching the topic, or maybe through
personal experience, maybe through
interviewing others, learning from the Internet. And that is when you
began the rough draft. During the rough draft, we want to be quick, we want to be efficient. And my personal philosophy is
that you should overwrite. Because when you're
overriding a, during the editing process, you make it easier on yourself. Let me give you a little secret that a lot of other
writers won't tell you. It's way easier to chop
away content rather than desperately trying to add content in during
the editing section. So whenever you're
creating a rough draft, you have one goal in mind. Get your ideas from
your mind to reality. And in order to
do this, be fast, if you think it's going to
take you 30 minutes to get your ideas from mine to reality, the challenge yourself and
give yourself 15 minutes. This allows you to bulldoze
through writer's block. And as you're bulldozing
through writer's block, overwrite, whenever
you're in doubt, be like. I'll take care of that
in the editing section. And keep on writing
and writing and writing until the timer is up.
5. 3 Step Editing Formula: So my three-step
editing formula is one, fixed the red lines to
eliminate the junk. And three, mentally, we read the content until the kinks
have been ironed out. Allow us to go through
each of the three steps.
6. Fix Red Lines: I'm a simple guy. I don't need too many tools in
the writing process. Just give me a Microsoft
document and leave me alone. Microsoft document is where I'm typically writing
my rough draft. And since I am predominantly focusing on getting
my ideas from mind to reality during
the rough draft section, I'm not necessarily
focusing on the spelling, grammar, punctuation,
and all of that. All I'm focusing on is making sure that I'm getting
my ideas out there. Once time is done, what happens is that I'm staring
at a bunch of red lines. Everything seems
a little sloppy. It doesn't look too good. And this is when
I simply look at the red lines, I'm fixing it. Sometimes I could
right-click and Microsoft document will give
me the correct spelling. Other times I'll right-click and they'll give me
a different word. So I have to get my hands dirty and fix up
that word myself. The main thing that I'm doing
in this section is just trying to reduce or eliminate
completely the red lines. And I'm not necessarily focusing on sound into conversational or anything yet that will come in the later
stages of editing. Right now, my goal is to slowly
melt away the red lines.
7. Eliminate Junk: The rough draft section, I mentioned that I
always overwrite and due to me overriding in
the rough draft section, typically in the
editing section, my predominant intention
is to eliminate junk. And I consider it a junk if it is not moving my point forward. Other editors, they will
typically have the problem where they have to add
more content in there, not just focusing on
eliminating junk, they're focusing on eliminating junk and adding in content. That's two variables. This is why I said in
the rough draft section, always overwrite a kid you not. This is one of the biggest
cheat codes out there. And if you abide by this, you will make this
process so much easier. Because you will
edit ruthlessly. Over time. You'll start
to build chops for. This. Writing is good. It's
all fancy as polished, but it's not helping this
entire body of work at all. So yes, I will eliminate
it in the beginning when you're still a baby
editor is still a newbie. You're going to feel hesitant in terms of eliminating stuff. You're gonna be like, no, no, at this point needs to be there because it
connects to this, this and this, which is fine. How warm yourself up
to becoming ruthless. But the bottom line with this
step is to eliminate junk. And you have the luxury
of doing that if you overrode in the
rough draft section.
8. Mentally Re Read the Content: Now the spelling is clear. I eliminated a lot of the noise. And now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to reread
the content back. Sometimes I'll verbally model the words as I'm
reading it back. Other times, I'll just
mentally reread it back. And nowadays, since I've
put in so much reps, I like to do the mental
version because it allows me to see if the
content sounds like me. As I'm re-reading it back, it should feel as though the
content is speaking to me. And normally when I'm
mentally rerouting a bag, I let my body be the compass. Every now and then,
I'll mentally read something where I'm
like, Wait a minute. That's not how you will talk. You will not say I am
going to the restroom. You will say, Yo, I'm going to the
bathroom real quick. And this allows me
to mentally alert myself and fuel present and
I'll stop and I'll fix that. Right. Then. I'll continue
reading the document and I'll keep on re-reading and rereading and
rereading the document until all kinks have
been ironed out. That this is a very
subjective process. Because what I consider a kink, you may not even notice. And this is one of the
reasons why I said that being an upcoming writer and editing your own work is one of
the finest things to do. Because during this process, you're learning how
you exactly right. And you're overseeing the
entire writing process, which is so beautiful to see. I'll keep going through it, through it, through it. And until I feel as though all the kinks
have been ironed out, I will keep on re-reading it.
9. Recap: We covered a couple of points. Let's do a quick little
recap to make sure that you understand
the big points. Editing is to polish up your writing so it is
pleasant for the consumer. The biggest difference between editing and proofreading is that editing is something that requires much more
interactiveness, is much more subjective. While proofreading is typically
the icing on the cake, and it can be automated
towards someone else. My three-step process
for editing equals one, fixed the red lines, uh, to eliminate junk. And three, mentally, we read the content until all the
kinks have been ironed out. Before I can edit something, I need a rough
draft of the work. I typically I'm
now going to start the rough draft until I
know a lot about the topic. Once I know a lot
about the topic, I have one goal in mind with my rough draft and get my
ideas from mine to reality. I don't care about cleanliness. I don't care about spelling, grammar, punctuation,
all of that. I'll take care of that
later with the rough draft. I tried to write it quick
and I tried to overwrite. Once the rough
draft is complete. That's when I'm looking at
the Microsoft document. I fixed all the red lines, which are the errors, such
as the spelling errors. I fixed that in my
first iteration. Then secondly, I
eliminate a lot of the junk that does
not add to the point. And for the third part, I continuously reread
the content mentally. And I wait for my body to alert me if there's
a certain kink. I consider it a kink. If it's a form of
expression that I wrote and that doesn't
sound like me. I'll keep on reading it
and reading it and reading it until all the
kinks are ironed out. And I am happy with my work.
10. Bonus Tip: Here's a bonus tip for you. You may have been noticing since this class that
there's big difference between doing the rough draft
and the editing process. The rough draft is rather quick. While the editing process
is more deliberate. If you're a newbie writer, what I recommend is
you introduce a gap between doing your rough
draft and you're editing. Which pretty much means like when you're done doing
the rough draft, do not immediately
begin editing. Instead, take, let's
say a two-hour break. Go chill, go hang out. This allows your brain to separate a creation
from editing. A lot of novice writers
do them at the same time. And that's how they turn a 30-minute task into
a three-day task. So learn to separate the
two by introducing a break. And it will be much
easier for you to write compelling pieces
in the long run.
11. Final Project: You made it all the way
to the end of the class. Congratulations. Now is the time for
the final project. What I want you to do is create a rough draft on a tough
moment from your life. This moment was
very tough for you. However, you are
able to overcome it. I recommend that you
make your rough draft roughly 1 thousand words long. I do it on Microsoft document. Once the rough
draft is complete, introduce a minimum of a 30-minute gap before
you begin editing. Once you begin the
editing process, first, make sure that you fix the red lines
in your document. Second, eliminate a lot of the junk that's not moving
your point forward. And third, keep rereading
the content back until you are satisfied with all
the kinks being eliminated. What's your complete a
gather your document and post it in the final project section, right arm below. I look forward to reading it. I thank you very
much for joining this beginner's
class on editing. And if you would
like more content from the Armani talks brand, be sure to check out our money talks.com. And this website. I have a lot of my
blogs, my videos, my podcasts, books, and much
more are money talks.com. Go on and check it out.
Arman Chowdhury, Confidence thru Communication
