Journalism professor at the University of Texas – Austin and author of “SLIP”, Mallary Tenore Tarpley brings her expertise in self editing to Litfest, in Tarpley’s presentation she taught students tips and tricks to being your best editor.

Students left the presentation with confidence in their editing abilities and showed them that self- editing is a skill anyone can improve with effort and practice. Tarpley’s presentation helped editing feel less intimidating and more like an opportunity to improve your own writing. 

The presentation was focused on the necessary skill of self-editing, we learned to avoid common mistakes in our writing and skills that will improve our writing. The presentation covered everything from fact checking information to eliminating redundant or wordy sentences.

Tarpley challenged students to take a break from writing before editing and shared how changing the font type, size, or color can help the brain see the writing differently. She also shared how reading your writing aloud in a different setting can help to see what needs to be edited. 

Another key lesson was eliminating redundant phrases even showing examples like “advanced warning” and “end result” explaining that both words are redundant because a warning would always be in advance and a result will always be at the end. Students learned that a good piece of writing is concise and every word should serve a purpose. She emphasized that writing should not lack detail but each sentence should contribute to the overall message. 

Tarpley showed examples from authors to demonstrate the editing process and showed pages from William Zinsser’s book “On Writing Well” showing his markups and revisions. She also explained some of the mistakes she makes in her writing, reminding students that mistakes are common. The presentation included interactive exercises where students practiced editing quotes themselves. We identified unnecessary words and discussed how to clarify sentences. 

Overall Mallary Tenore Tarpley’s presentation was informative and interactive. She taught tricks students can all use when it comes to writing essays or any piece of writing throughout high school and college.