Lipstick on a Dirty Pig: Editing and Proofreading are not the same cognitive activity.

NOTE: I made some serious revisions to this. See the next post. Editing is not the same thing as proofreading. But I think that when teachers say to edit your paper, we really are telling them to proofread. There’s a big difference.

Editing happens when someone else looks at the piece. Proofreading happens when the writer looks at the piece for polishing. Editing is about considering the Writing Quintet: organization, focus, clarity, coherence, and meaning. Spelling, grammar, punctuation are secondary tools (among others) that writers use to accomplish the Writing Quintet. The disconnect comes when we make spelling, grammar, and punctuation the goal instead of communication. Remember, these mechanical features of our language were invented by scribes to help the reader understand the written message. They were invented AFTER things were written and are only useful when you have something important to say. In other words, no one needs the rules until they put them with ideas. That’s why kids don’t remember the rules. There’s no point.

There are three kinds of editing:

Copy Edits - another person looks at the paper to identify

• grammar
• syntax

Hard Edits - another person looks at the paper for

• redundancies
• gaps in logic
• places where more explanation is needed
• moving around paragraphs
• reworking or eliminating parts of the text

Technical Edits: another person looks at the paper for facts and flaws in

• Attribution
• incorrect data
• missing words
• incorrect information (Armstrong-Carroll, 2008, p. 159)

In the classroom, there are also three kinds of editing

• Teacher and student
• Teacher
• Student and student (Armstrong-Carroll, 2008, p. 159)

Most of us, when we talk about editing, really mean proofreading. I think it is a distinction worth noting. It certainly brings more focus to the kinds of activities and thinking that writers do. Proofreading is more about getting something ready to print. Typography. Making it pretty.  Proofreading is about these things:

• Capitals
• Commas
• Indenting
• Spacing
• Letters in the right order (AKA spelling)
• Headings
• Inserting missing words
• Correcting reversals
• And more

Perhaps kids don’t do well with proofreading because they haven’t done the hard work of editing and shaping their writing to match their goals as writers. When you proofread before you edit, you just have lipstick on a dirty pig.

Armstrong-Carroll, J., & Wilson, E. E. (2008). ACTS of teaching: How to Teach Writing. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.