Self-editing Checklist      ENGL 271

A. Content

• abstraction à concrete

• specificity inserts: vague word à specific word, image, detail, research . . .

• enough ‘tension’, crisis, ambiguity, movement, depth . . .

• ‘flab’ check: redundancy, over-explanation; does it all contribute to the ‘tension’

• ethics check: is there a known possibility someone will be hurt by this text?

• accuracy check: have you written something you really don’t know much about?

• is it finished or part of something larger?

• quality of metaphor/simile

• speaking voice appropriate/realism/consistency

• diction consistency

• tense check, appropriate?

• p.o.v./site of enunciation, appropriate?

• deictics—consistency in markers of place and time

• cliché check

• enough description/imagery

• closure check: have I released the reader in a satisfying way?

• have I written past the real ending?

• atmosphere, mood, tone consistency/control

• have I supplied the right amount of stage/screen direction?

• are my scenes a manageable length for stage or film?

• is my script/screenplay a sellable length?

• too many plots? characters?

• production notes

• ‘bathos’/melodrama/sentimentality check

• have I charted the scenes/motion of the piece?

• conventions check; do I have a rationale for breaking a convention?

• title check

• best character names?

• have I workshopped this with someone?

• has this story already been told?

B. Form

• form rationale/meaning

• form consistency

• transition check

• are line breaks ‘working’

• what do spaces, asterisks, and page breaks signify

• paragraph unity

• dialogue form/punctuation

 • proper script/screenplay form

C. Copy edit

• cut overused gerunds & adverbs

• capital use consistency

• margins

• font, consistent use of italics, bold, parentheses . . .

• repetition of certain words, phrases, sentence types

• punctuation check:

                  --comma splices

                  --comma overuse

                  --only use as serial commas, between noun clauses, to set off clauses

                  --apostrophe as possessive (Claire’s) and contraction (it’s = it is)

                  --semicolon joins independent clauses

                  --colon introduces list (: = “such as”)

                  --double dashes interrupt

                  --hyphens create compound words (well-wisher)

• grammar:

                  --avoid passive (“to be” verbs)

                  --sentence fragment

                  --run-on sentence

                  --agreement (subject-verb, singular vs plural, pronoun)