My editor recently returned my manuscript with her markups. She uses both Track Changes and Comments. I dread using the Track Changes option, but I’ve learned a few shortcuts, and I wrote about them a while back. Looking at a 355 page manuscript full of markups and marginal notes is daunting. However, since I wrote the book one word, one scene, one chapter at a time, I tackle my edits the same way, but I prioritize the types of edits and deal with one category at a time. First, I scroll through the manuscript taking care of all the obvious fixes. My editor will make changes in formatting—she might break a paragraph into two, or combine two into one. Sometimes she’ll add italics, or change a word. These are usually straightforward, and I accept almost all of them. As I go down the comments, I’m not re-reading the manuscript, but simply hopping from one change to the next. I’ll look at the suggestion in context, but generally these are grammatical, so I don’t need to read more th...

Word’s Track Changes feature is great for receiving comments and edits on a piece of writing, but what if you have two or more critiques to review? It’s quite easy to merge all your critiques into one document with each editor’s changes, suggestions, and comments highlighted in a different colour and labelled with their name or initials. Always make backup copies of your documents, though, just in case. Select one critiqued manuscript to be your base document and save it with a filename that reflects this status. In Word 2007/10: Click Review, Compare, Combine In Word 2003: Tools, Compare and Merge Documents... Select your base document in the first box and the next critique in the second box. You can either use your name, or a term like “Auto” to assign to the unmarked changes. This simply means that anything that Word needs to change, such as reinserting a word that one reviewer has deleted, will be labelled with this term. Combine or merge documents - Word 2007 Wor...

This post was previously published here at the Blood-Red Pencil, but it, along with many of our earliest posts, is so useful for writers that we are featuring the best "oldies but goodies" during the month of December. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Track Changes and Comments features of a word processing program are very useful for editing or critiquing either your own or another writer's manuscript. Here is a guide to using these features. Using Track Changes in MS Word Tools, Track Changes Or Double click TRK on the Status Bar Track Changes can be used to keep a note of changes you make to a document, particularly if you are not certain you want to keep the changes. It is very useful if you’ve asked another person to edit or comment on your work, and you wish to review their changes before accepting them. Comments The Insert Comment option is available on the Reviewing Toolbar that pops up when you select Tools, Track Changes . To hide the comments in a...

Dear Editors- “I think one of the hardest things to do is self-editing. Invariably, no matter how hard you try, there is always something you overlook or miss. What is your advice on how to get the most out of self- editing? What are the most important things a writer should look for when they edit?” Christine Verstraete, author, Searching For A Starry Night, A Miniature Art Mystery *** If you missed it and want to catch up with Lesson One, Click Here. And now Lesson Two-- Use the Word tools, “Track Changes,” and “Spelling and Grammar” to do the following: • Eliminate repetitious words. Look for words used more than twice or thrice in close proximity. Switch on Track Changes, and then click on “Edit.” Use the “Find” feature to locate those words everywhere in your manuscript. Have your thesaurus handy or up on your browser, and use it to replace repeated words with appropriate synonyms. An exception to this practice is if you have a character with a quirky trait of using a certain word...