Editing

1. Editing

2. Editing your Personal Narrative • Keys to Effective Editing: • Use a dictionary, a thesaurus, and the “Proofreader’s Guide” on p. 604-763 in the Write Source book to guide your corrections. • Check for any words or phrases that may be confusing to the reader. • Check your narrative for correct use of punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar. • Edit on the copy you have, then input your final draft on the computer. • Use the editing and proofreading marks on the inside back cover of the Write Source book to note your changes.

3. Editing for Conventions • If I used dialogue, did I punctuate it correctly? • Follow these rules: • Use a comma to set off a speaker’s exact words from the rest of the sentence. • Place periods and commas inside quotation marks. • Place an exclamation point or a question mark outside quotation marks when it punctuates the main sentence, and inside when it punctuates the quotation. • Have I used pronouns correctly? • You have if the pronouns agree with their antecedents in all of the following: • Number • Gender • Person

4. Publishing

5. Publishing your Personal Narrative • Make a neat final copy to share. • Focus on presentation: • Type your essay. • Use a proper heading. • Double-space your narrative. • Indent every paragraph and leave a one-inch margin on all four sides. • Other ideas: • Recording your narrative. • Presenting it in a class blog. • Reading it to a group of your peers.

6. Reflecting on Your Writing • You’ve worked hard on your personal narrative. • NOW – think about your writing! • Complete each of the following statements about your narrative: • The strongest part of my personal narrative is… • The part that still needs work is… • The main thing I learned about writing a personal narrative is… • In my next personal narrative, I would like to… • One question I still have about writing personal narratives is…