Editing for a critique group can be intimidating.
What should you look for? How should you note it? What does this weird squiggle mean?
Fear not! Ladybird Editing is here with the introduction to editing by hand, the best way to help your writing partners and get help yourself.
Download the worksheet with that big red button then follow along this web page to fill in the marks in the empty boxes in the middle.
The Basic Marks
The first thing you'll want to do is to learn how to recommend deleting text. Draw a line in the middle box then draw a line through "frog" on your worksheet and change it to whatever you like.
Circling any punctuation indicates that it should be changed to a period.
Insert punctuation that sits on the bottom of the line on the bottom.
Insert punctuation that sits on the top of the line from the top.
To suggest a paragraph, draw this fancy P at the start of a sentence.
Make your dashes clear! Hyphens have triangles on top and bottom, em dashes have M or Em on top, and en hashes get N or En.
Formatting
I like to write the lowercase letter above the slashed uppercase and write the upper case over one that is lowercase just for clarity, but it's not necessary.
"Small caps" indicates that the text should be in capital letters the size of lowercase letters. It's a type of formatting option in most word processors.
Italics are underlined once just like if you were formatting book titles and didn't have access to italics!
You should never be recommending your friend bold anything in their fiction, but I've provided the line anyway.
And to tell your friend that they need to get rid of their bold, circle it and write ROM next to it!
Other Stuff
When abbreviations or numerals need to be spelled out, circle them and write the word above it.
Instead of arrows, indicate that words should switch places with this cradle! If paragraphs need to be moved, circle the whole thing and write off to the side both where it needs to go and a note at the recommended destination.
While not technical errors, highlight or put brackets around confusing or distracting repetition of words, information, sentence structure, or even unintentional alliteration! This can help your friend see where they can make their text stronger.
And when you write a note, either a question or suggestion, circle or draw a box around it! This indicates that the note is commentary and not something that should be written in the text.
Congratulations!
And now you know the basics! Give it a shot. Frankie Frog Flies Across the Freeway has quite a few errors worth marking up. Send me an email if you do or tag me on any of my social medias with pictures.
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What I've listed here are just the hand editing essentials. Need more than just the basics? Check out Proofreaders' Marks on the Chicago Manual of Style website. They have a whole two sections in the manual about how to use these marks.