Editors are often advised to read manuscripts aloud, as you will catch mistakes that you might not when reading silently. Last summer I got an excellent editing tip from the reader comments on this very blog that takes this advice one step further. I’ve been using it ever since. (This is another tip – read the comments on the Blood-Red Pencil as well as the posts! They often contain juicy nuggets of wisdom from other writers and editors.) Convert the manuscript into a PDF file, then on the View menu click the Read Aloud function. Adobe will read aloud to you. It’s true, the voice (mine is female, but some may be male) reads in a mechanical monotone, but this is a plus. You will hear each individual word that way. The first time I tried this, I was amazed at how much easier, faster, and more efficient this was. If you’re editing your own, or someone else’s work, I urge you to try this. Of course, it’s not perfect. Adobe has some strange ideas about pronunciation. The manuscript I fi...

Authors and editors will tell you that reading your manuscript aloud is one of the best ways to identify any remaining problems with awkward sentence structure, sentences that are too long, word repetitions, bad dialogue, and silly goofs. Maryann Miller posted two excellent articles on line editing in April, 2009. Line Editing: One and Line Editing – Part Two will give you great results if you go over your manuscript visually. However, if you follow that effort with another read, this time out loud, you will improve your manuscript. Why is that? When the writer reads to himself, his eye ignores and visually corrects the problems noted at the beginning of this post as well as typos, words or lines accidentally deleted during the revision process, and spacing and formatting errors. Reading aloud, however, forces the reader to look at words individually instead of seeing phrases and whole sentences at once. We often hear what we don’t see. Dialogue might look great on paper, bu...