Kids Friendly New Zealand  Children's Writing Club Editing your work Other writing tips    It is great to have ideas and write them down on paper or put them on to your computer, but once they are written down you need to edit your work. So what is editing? Editing (or proofreading) means correcting an original piece of writing so that it’s ready to be published. You need to check spelling, punctuation, grammar and sense – does it say what you really want it to say?    Publishing means making your work available for other people to read. This can include anything from handing your work in to your teacher or entering a competition to having your work made into a book for people to buy. Did you know that even famous writers have their books edited before they are published? Simple steps to editing Capital letters and full stops Start by looking at each sentence and make sure that it begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop or another type of punctuation ending.

One common punctuation ending is a question mark, like this - ? If your sentence begins with words like how, why, what, who, where, which and when, then you will need to put a question mark at the end of the sentence to show you are asking a question. People’s names and place names (proper nouns) When you write someone’s name or the name of a place you need to make sure that the name starts with a capital letter, even if it’s in the middle of a sentence. Do I use the word number or amount? Even though it appears that these words mean the same, they don’t. To choose the right one, you have to decide if you can count the thing you are writing about. Number is used for things you can count, like cats, footballs or people. It goes with the word ‘many’ – you could ask how many cats there are. Amount is used for things you can’t count, like snow, cheese or rubbish. It goes with the word ‘much’ – you could ask how much snow there is. Example: The greengrocer put a large number of apples in the bag. (You can count apples. You can see how many there are.) The dog had a large amount of mud stuck to his coat. (You can’t count mud! But you can see how much there is.) Do I use the word fewer or less? These words are similar to number and amount – to work out which is correct you have to decide if you can count the thing you are writing about. Fewer means not so many, for things you can count. Less means not so much, for things you can’t count. Example: There were fewer apples in my bag because I had eaten some. (You can count apples and see how many there are.) There was less mud on my dog after our walk today. (You can’t count mud but you can see how much there is.) When to write numbers as numbers and when to write them as words In most sentences, you should write numbers 1-9 as words (one, two, three, etc) and numbers ten onwards as numbers (10, 11, 12, etc). Read it out loud One way to edit your work is to read what you have written out loud. Sometimes you can hear mistakes or words you have missed out.

Other writing tips:

• Commas and apostrophes   

• Capitals and full stops  

• Words that sound the same but are different   

• Question marks and other stuff like that