I do want to share a copy editing technique that’s been my little secret for years, and it might just become your most useful habit.

For years, I had a little editing quirk but I never thought much about it. It was just something I did at the end of a long day in the newsroom. Only later did I realise how powerful it really was. The funny part? No one ever taught me this, nor did I pick it up from any style guide. It was just my habit, and it turned out to be my sharpest weapon as a copy editor.

I call it “The Mirror Edit”

The Mirror Edit is a simple but surprisingly effective editing method: once you finish going through a copy from start to finish, you edit it again, but this time in reverse, from bottom to top, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph.

In other words, you look at the copy differently. The definition is simple: The Mirror Edit is the practice of disrupting narrative flow to spot errors, repetitions, and weak spots that normally escape your eye in forward reading or you can say top-to-bottom reading.

Keep on reading! Follow me to receive new posts.