You’ve spent hours on your writing project. Spellcheck hasn’t underlined any errors, and you’ve said what you set out to say. Before your teacher even looks at it s/he says to rewrite. What? Why did you put all that time in you wonder? But hear me out. Your teacher has a point. First drafts are rarely ready for prime time. Revising involves more than punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors. You also want to look at sensory details, sentence flow and variability. Sensory Detail You may think you’ve already included all the necessary sensory details. My rule of thumb is to incorporate at least three senses in every scene. In our…
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SPaG
SPaG is writer shorthand for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It is the most basic level of revision. Most word programs have built in spell and grammar checks. They may even alert you to punctuation errors such as not using a question mark where you need one. Spelling Let’s look at spelling first. You may think spellcheck is your friend. Beware! Unfortunately your computer cannot distinguish between rode and road; sink and synch; or weight and wait. It is your job to proofread for meaning. The English language has hundreds of homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled differently. If you’re unsure of proper spelling look it up! Some homophones…
