Editing Fiction Reviews
After revising your fiction review, you need to edit it to correct any remaining errors. You'll look closely at sentences, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and spelling. The following activities will help you edit your review.
Editing for Present Tense
Writing verbs in the present tense will make your review more lively. The present tense shows that something is happening now or happens regularly. Even though you read the book in the past, you can describe things that happened in the book in the present tense.
Past tense: A classmate wrote hurtful comments about her heritage.
Present tense: A classmate writes hurtful comments about her heritage.
Choose present-tense verbs.
Select the present-tense verb from the options in each sentence.
- Something bad (happenshappens, happened) to the main character.
- Shiloh (cowered, cowerscowers) around people.
- Marty and his family (livelive, lived) in West Virginia.
- When Shiloh (ran, runsruns) away, Marty (built, buildsbuilds) him a cage.
Editing for Active Verbs
Another way to energize your writing is to use the active form of verbs. A verb is active if the subject is doing the action of the verb. A verb is passive if the action of the verb is being done to the subject.
Passive: Hurtful comments about her heritage were written by a classmate.
Active: A classmate writes hurtful comments about her heritage.
Replace passive verbs.
Rewrite the sentences to make the verbs active. Use the present tense of the verb in your sentence. One example is provided.
- A cage for Shiloh is built by Marty.
Marty builds a cage for Shiloh.
- A bad thing is seen by Marty.
- Marty is followed by Shiloh.
Editing Titles for Italics and Capitalization
If you are writing on a computer, you should italicize book titles. Italics is a style of type that is slightly slanted so that it stands out. Italics are also used for titles of plays, magazines, newspapers, television programs, and movies.
Shiloh
The Great Wall of Lucy Wu
James and the Giant Peach
If you are writing by hand, use underlining instead of italics.
Shiloh
The Great Wall of Lucy Wu
James and the Giant Peach
Book titles follow special capitalization rules. Capitalize the first word of a title, the last word, and every word in between except for short prepositions (of, in, to, for), connecting words (and), and articles (a, an, the).
Where the Red Fern Grows
How to Eat Fried Worms
Italicize and capitalize titles.
Rewrite the following sentences to correct the missing italics and capitalization of titles.
- The Diary of a wimpy Kid is both a book and a movie.
- Have you read The secret Zoo?
- In the book island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana is stranded on an island.
- James and the giant peach is my favorite book.
- Another book about a dog is called Old yeller.
- The Incredibles is an exciting movie.
- A spider is the star of the book and movie called Charlotte’s web.
- I like all of the characters in Toy story 3.
- The wednesday wars is written by Gary D. Schmidt.
- National Geographic includes great panoramic pictures.
Editing in Action
When you edit, you check to make sure your review is correct.
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Paragraph Before Edits
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A title is underlined and missing capitalization is fixed. Past tense verbs are changed to present tense, and a comma splice error is fixed.
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Paragraph After Edits
Edit with a checklist.
Read each line. When you can answer each question with a yes, check it off.
Checking Grammar and Usage
- Do I describe actions from the book in the present tense?
- Do I use active verbs in place of passive verbs? (Yi-Po embarrasses Lucy, not Lucy was embarrassed by Yi-Po.)
- Are words used correctly (your/you’re, their/they’re, its/it’s)?
- Do my subjects and verbs agree in number? (Lucy and Yi-Po were laughing, not Lucy and Yi-Po was laughing.)
- Are sentences complete (no fragments or run-ons)?
Checking Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling
- Are the first words in sentences capitalized?
- Are book titles capitalized correctly?
- Are book titles italicized or underlined?
- Do commas and quotation marks set off exact words from the book?
- Are words correctly spelled?
Publishing Fiction Reviews
When you publish your review, you share it with others. First, you need to make a clean final copy of your work. Then you should find ways to share your writing with classmates, your teacher, your family, and your friends.
Publishing a Final Copy
Create a final copy of your review.
Include your revising and editing changes and read over your work a final time. (If you are working on a computer, spell-check your work.)
Reflecting on Your Writing
Reflect on your writing.
Complete the following form to think about what you learned.
