Every piece of content I write starts as an idea in my head before I tap away at the keyboard and bring it to life. Then, I’ll edit and polish my draft, hopefully resulting in a well-crafted article to deliver to the client.

The second half of that process is always the hardest.

Editing content can be challenging, and you might find yourself rereading a piece, unsure what to change, even though you sense it needs refining.

This block is something I know all too well, and editing is my least favourite part of the writing process. However, it’s a necessary evil if I want to uphold the high standards that clients come to expect from Yardstick content, so I’ve honed my skills over the years.

One key mistake people make with editing is viewing it as one process. In reality, there are different types of editing, and considering them separately could help you develop a more successful approach.

Here are three different forms of editing and how to apply them to your content writing process.

1. Substantive editing

It’s useful to start with the broad strokes, often known as substantive editing.

Before reading the entire piece again, I look at my title and scan the subheadings, asking myself two key questions:

• Does the general structure and argument of the article make sense?
• Does the content deliver what is promised by the title?

This simple step helps me check whether the overall article works, or if I need to make any wider structural changes. For instance, I might rearrange the sections or change the title and subheadings to better reflect the content.

In some cases, if the whole thing feels muddled, I might consider whether I need to take a different angle.

Remember, readers will often scan the subheadings themselves to get an idea of what the article is about and whether they want to read it in full, so there must be a clear argument running throughout.

2. Stylistic editing

In the substantive editing phase, you are essentially checking that the overall concept and argument of the article make sense.

Now, you move to stylistic editing, which focuses on how you deliver that argument. This is where you’ll look at sentence length and construction, word choice, and redundant copy. Don’t worry about the fine details like spelling and grammar at this point.

The “read aloud” function on Microsoft Word is my first port of call here. Hearing the copy read out loud makes it easier to notice repetitive flow, overly wordy sentences, or dull word choices.

Our resident proofreader Tom’s recent article on ‘How to write concisely’ has some excellent tips to help you streamline your writing during this stage.

This can be the most difficult part of editing, but it’s made easier if you approach each line with these questions in mind:

• Does this further the argument or deliver useful information to the reader?
• Could I say this in fewer words?
• Can I make this more engaging?

Editing is more effective when you’re clear about what you are trying to achieve – delivering your message to the reader clearly and engagingly. Any word or sentence that doesn’t further this goal must be changed or removed.

3. Copy editing

Often, writers who find editing difficult will skip the first two steps and jump straight to copy editing because it’s easier to determine what to change.

This is the final stage where you look for spelling and grammar problems and make final tweaks to the copy.

Technology is your friend here as you can use tools such as Grammarly or the built-in checkers on Microsoft Word to identify issues for you. At Yardstick, we have also developed our own AI tools to check work against our in-house Style Guide and highlight errors.

However, it’s important that you also do a final check yourself before publishing the content. We are fortunate enough to have an experienced proofreader to ensure everything is perfect before it goes to our clients.

This three-step process will take the stress out of editing, but our expert writers are here to help if you need us

Breaking the editing process into three distinct steps gives you more focus and avoids constant rereading of content without changing anything.

However, as a busy financial planner, you might decide you would rather leave it to our expert writers, who benefit from years of experience and the right tools to craft and edit high-quality content.

Email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300 to find out what we can do for you.