Favorite Revision and Editing Tricks

As I've said in other posts, writing as a process is a topic I stress with my students.  Here are my favorite six revision and editing tricks. 

1.  Use color.  When revising on a printed document (which really should be tip number 7), always use a colorful writing utensil.  If you revisit the same draft more than once, change colors.  Lastly, when you go through your printed draft to copy the changes on to the computer, use a colored pen or marker to cross them off as you go.  When working directly on the computer, use the highlight function to make problem areas stand out for later attention.  Examples include citations you need to look up, notes to yourself about material to add, or anything that sounds off, but you can't fix immediately. 
2. Read it backwards.  Reading an essay backwards is strictly an editing trick.  Reading the words out of context interrupts your memory of what the text was meant to say.  That allows you to focus on individual words and punctuation marks.  This trick helps find typos, misspellings, capitalization errors, incorrect punctuation, and citation errors. 
3. Read it out loud to yourself.  An AP teacher in my building used to make all the students circle the room facing the wall.  They then read their papers aloud simultaneously.  Reading aloud forces you to listen to how the words sound rather than just remembering what you meant.  This helps with editing and revision problems involving grammar, punctuation, word choice - all the problems that lead to the vague teacher comment "awkward."
4. Use find to look for specific errors.  Using the find function in a word processing program can target specific problems.  A student could search for trouble words.  With my dyslexia, I would always search for my common mistakes that formed real words (form / from, who / how).  This is an easy way to check words on the commonly confused list, such as effect / affect or the three there's.  A student can use it to add variety to word choice by searching the over used word and substituting synonyms.  Also, synonyms could be swapped out for vague or weak words.  Lastly, it can be used as a citation checker by searching parenthesis or quotation marks. 
5. Have someone read it to you.  Ideally, I would ask my students to read their partner's work aloud to them during peer work shopping, but time and volume level requirements often didn't allow it.  Listening to how your writing sounds without reading along can bring those awkward problems to the surface.  Students realize words are left out or in a strange order.  Suddenly, the pronoun references are no longer clear.  Or, maybe the flow between ideas or quotations is now noticeably awkward. 
6. Distance.  I give my students enough time to work on their writing so that they can put it away for a night or two to get the objectivity time and space offer.  (That is not to say that students budget their time to make use of this opportunity).  Putting a piece of writing away for even just one day offers a fresh light.  The results are very similar to hearing your writing read aloud.  Distance is my favorite trick because it empowers the student to revise and edit independently, and provides the best situation for the student to dive into serious revision.  When someone else is holding the paper, the student can't rip it away to tear a paragraph a part.