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When it comes time to edit blog posts, do you hide under your desk, cross your fingers, and hope the editorial fairy comes along and edits them for you? Do you sometimes skip right over errors? If you do, don’t worry. You can improve your self-editing skills by making a couple of simple changes.

Take a Break

Don’t jump straight into editing after you finish writing a post. If possible, walk away from it until the next day. At the very least, get up and do something else for a little while.

Stretch. Head outside for a brisk walk. Get a drink of water and sip it slowly. You need your brain to focus on another task for a bit. Otherwise, you’ll be more likely to miss something while you edit.

Make the Font Larger

You want to make editing easy on your eyes, so bump up your font size a bit. You’ll be more likely to catch typos when you don’t have to strain to see them. Just remember to resize everything when you’re done!

Read It Aloud

Did you know your brain tends to look past what you’ve written, and read what you think you’ve written? This means if you’ve left out a word, your brain can insert it for you as you’re reading. It’s actually quite useful for readers, because it helps us make better sense of things.

But, it’s not so good when you’re editing. When your brain inserts a word for you, it’s still missing from the page. Your readers will spot your error even if you don’t.

To keep your brain from tricking you, edit blog posts by reading them aloud. Don’t speed read. You need to force yourself to look at every word. If you find yourself saying something that’s not on the page, stop.

Read the sentence again and see if there’s a change you need to make. Keep going until you can make it through the whole thing without stopping.

As you read, pay attention to the flow. Look for any sections of text you’ve repeated. Keep your eyes opened for phrases you’re using too often. A thesaurus can help you come up with a different word.

You want to read your post through the eyes of a reader, not as a writer. Does it make sense when you read it? Do you stay on topic? If not, you’ll need to keep working on it.

Use Editing Tools

Editing tools help catch errors. Most word processors have built-in proofreading tools. Use them, but don’t count on them exclusively. They don’t always catch problems in usage or grammar.

Consider these built-in tools your first line of defense. They’ll help you catch the obvious problems. But, they may not be strong enough to spot everything. If you need a little more help, try Grammarly or the Hemingway App. These tools can catch errors that your basic spell-check may have missed.

Read It Once More

After you’re all done making changes, read your blog post once more. You want to make sure you’ve updated everything properly. Once you’re done, your post is ready for publishing.