Revising vs. editing: what's the difference for 6th grade writers?

📚 Revising vs. Editing: What's the Big Deal?

Revising and editing are two important steps in the writing process, but they focus on different aspects of your work. Think of revising as the big-picture changes, like adding more details or moving paragraphs around. Editing is like polishing a shiny stone – fixing small errors to make it sparkle!

✍️ Revising: Making Your Writing Better

Revising is all about improving the overall quality of your writing. It means looking at the content, organization, and clarity of your work to see where you can make it stronger and more impactful.

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• 🔍 Definition: Improving the overall content, structure, and clarity of your writing.
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• ✨ Focus: Big-picture changes such as adding details, reorganizing paragraphs, or changing the focus.
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• 🛠️ Questions to Ask: Does my essay make sense? Are my ideas clear? Is there anything I should add or remove? Does my introduction grab the reader’s attention?

✒️ Editing: Polishing Your Writing

Editing is about fixing the smaller details in your writing, such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. This step makes your writing clear, professional, and easy to read.

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• ✅ Definition: Correcting errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure.
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• 🔎 Focus: Small details that make your writing clear and error-free.
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• 🧐 Questions to Ask: Are there any spelling mistakes? Did I use the correct punctuation? Are my sentences grammatically correct?

Revising vs. Editing: A Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Revising	Editing
Focus	Content, Organization, Clarity	Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation
Type of Changes	Adding, deleting, moving content	Correcting errors
When to Do It	After the first draft is complete	After revising

✨ Key Takeaways

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• 📚 Revising and editing are BOTH crucial: Both contribute to a polished final product.
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• 🛠️ Revise FIRST, then edit: Focus on the big picture before the small details.
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• 💡 Practice makes perfect: The more you revise and edit, the better you'll become!