Thus, if the paragraph is badly written, do not say so. Correct it as well as you can and be prepared to justify why you made those changes. In this situation, it helps if you know the rules of grammar because you can use them to minimize the sting of your corrections. Thus, rather than saying, "This is not very well written," you can say something like, "This sentence contains a misplaced modifier. I've corrected it by reversing the clauses." If, however, the paragraph is well written, say so, but mention why you think it is well written. You can say something like, "In this type of sentence, I often see this kind of error. The author has clearly taken care to avoid it by doing x instead of y."
In an editing test you will often see sentences that are ambiguous. Since you cannot be sure which meaning is correct, write all the meanings down as possible corrections. Longer tests can be quite difficult. You might be asked to format a document, create a table of contents, a table caption, and some cross-references. Thank goodness you did your sample bookâyou'll have no problem with this kind of test.
Other tests require you to rewrite a complex text. If the text is full of acronyms or technical words that mean nothing to you, you might find the test easier to handle if you replace the incomprehensible words with words that you do understand. For example, if the text says "The OC-1 Delivery Unit is a system that supplies point-to-point DS-1 channels from one location to another," you might understand it better if you think of it as, say, "The water-delivery unit is a system that supplies house-to-house water hoses from one location to another." When understood like this, it is easier to see the problems with the sentence. You might rewrite it as "The water-delivery unit supplies water from one location to another through a house-to-house hose system." You can now correct the original sentence to read "The OC-1 Delivery Unit supplies DS-1 signals from one location to another through a point-to-point channel system."
If the test includes a long editing component of several pages, focus more on the format than on the text. Look for the following problems:
- paragraphs that do not end with a period
- sentences that do not begin with a capital letter
- inconsistent final punctuation in bulleted lists
- non-parallel structure in lists
- problems with vertical alignment in lists
- inaccurate numbering in numbered lists
- misaligned decimals in a list of numbers
- changes in paragraph justification
- changes in margin widths
- inconsistent page numbering
- errors in cross-references
- parentheses or quotations that are missing the closing bracket or quotation mark
- word repetition at the end of one line and the beginning of the next
- extra spaces between words
- changes in font
