Dear Compulsive Rewriter:
Try Our Revising & Editing Checklists

Twenty years ago, in a New York Times article titled "The Wonders of Writing on a Computer," columnist Russell Baker skeptically illustrated his thesis in these unfinished opening lines:

The wonderful thing about writing with a computer instead of a typewriter or a lead pencil is that it's so easy to rewrite that you can make each sentence almost perfect before moving on to the next sentence.

An impressive aspect of using a computer to write with

One of the pluses about a computer on which to write

Happily, the computer is a marked improvement over both the typewriter and the lead pencil for purposes of literary composition, due to the ease with which rewriting can be effectuated, thus enabling

What a marked improvement the computer is for the writer over the typewriter and lead pencil

Nowadays, Baker's references to typewriters and lead pencils may sound quaint, and his point about the relative ease of rewriting on a computer is taken for granted. Yet his series of false starts illustrates a more profound observation: that the convenience of word processing doesn't necessarily make the real work of writing (and revising and editing) any simpler. Paradoxically, the ease of re-writing can make the job of writing much harder.

Baker's true thesis appears in the final sentence of the essay:

Since it is easier to revise and edit with a computer than with a typewriter or pencil, this amazing machine makes it very hard to stop editing and revising long enough to write a readable sentence, much less an entire newspaper column.

If you have ever found yourself stuck with a clumsy sentence that refuses to stand up straight and march smartly across the screen, you know there's not a tool or a trick in Microsoft Word that will fix it for you. The problem, as Dear Abby likes to say, is "all in your head."

Our recommendation in such cases is to blunder on with your draft, knowing that eventually you'll have to return to that wayward sentence when you revise and edit. In other words, "almost perfect" is sometimes the best any of us can do--at least for the time being.

The important thing is not to let the compulsion to re-write distract us from writing. Resisting that temptation can actually speed up our work and make revising and editing on the return visit much simpler.

To guide you in this process of revising and editing, we've prepared two short checklists:

• Revision Checklist
• Editing Checklist

Sure, the tasks of revising and editing overlap. So do all stages of the writing process. But that doesn't mean you have to spin plates, juggle machetes, and dance with a grizzly bear all at the same time. Relax. Write. Then revise and edit.