WORKWEEK

AI usage is up across the board––and all I think about is water every time I use it. Nonetheless, a VP even asked me to run a report through ChatGPT today to see what insights it pulled out. I told her, “I already did,” and then we reviewed the outputs. It’s commonplace at this point. If you aren’t using it at least a little, you are behind. At the end of this newsletter, I have some good links from other content folks on how to use it for this specific role. 

But for as helpful as AI can be, it’s also wrong… a lot. Editing is crucial. So, here are the 3 types of edits I’ve been doing on my content since my journalism days. 

The 3 types of edits

I perform 3 types of edits on every single piece of content that comes my way. The first is the biggest and most extensive. The final one takes into account how people read on the internet, and makes sure that our content can still stand up to those standards. 

I break it out into these three types of edits because doing all of them at the same time is both impossible, I’ve found, and doesn’t get you the quality you need. Your brain needs to be focused on a type of edit––looking for specific problems––to really hone a piece properly. 

1. Context edit: 

Question(s) to ask: Does this make sense? Have we connected the right dots to present a new, strong case? Does it position our products properly and align with our global narrative>?

This is your biggest edit, and it starts by you diving in and reading the piece. You’ll likely find that with most articles, you can’t even get past the intro. And trust yourself here, if you can’t read through the introduction without getting confused, bored, or distracted, then your readers won’t be able to either. 

This is where the editing starts. 

More questions to ask (just in the introduction alone!):

• How is the argument presented? Could it be better? 
• Is the argument even accurate? 
• Does it convince me that this article (which is likely at least 1,500 words) worth my time? 
• Does it convince me that this is something I should care about right now? 
• Does it connect dots for me that I previously didn’t see properly connected, but now that I do, feel like I can trust the article and better understand a topic for having read it? 

Content needs to have a unique point of view on a topic––something other people aren’t catching, dots they aren’t connecting. Otherwise, you’re publishing content just for the sake of publishing. That’s content pollution, and now, with AI, algorithms like Google will get even more savvy toward regurgitation, and derank it. 

Worse than the future SEO issues, though, is that when you don’t provide a take on a topic, you aren’t building your thought leadership status. You become just another brand or just another blog in a sea of sameness. 

This edit should change that. 

2. Line edit: 

Question(s) to ask: Is this consistent with our guidelines?

Line edits are easier than context edits, and the revisions can even be done by an editor themselves (though you often want to leave them or mark them for the writer if they write for you often so they can reduce these errors). 

In this, you are checking for:

• Grammar usage
• Sentence structure 
• Overall clarity 
• Spelling
• Spelling in alignment with your brand standards (ecommerce, Ecommerce, eCommerce, e-commerce…which do you use? Or, do you spell out percent, or just write %?)
• Proper citations (seriously, click through the link and find where they got the info. Make sure it isn’t more than 5 years old). 
• Linking to the brands mentioned, the people mentioned, etc. 
• Interlinking to relevant, existing content on your own site (like case studies!)
• Making sure the brands mentioned / included are customers (if you follow that rule, and my teams do)
• Headline and subhead editing and the offering of alternatives

3. Scan edit: 

Question(s) to ask: Can I scan this & still really like it, get what it is saying & have a takeaway?

Finally, you want to do a scan edit. A scan edit needs to look for/at:

• Headline: Is this compelling enough to make me want to read it? 
• Subheads: Are these compelling enough to make me want to read them, and do they tell a story throughout the piece (your subheads should tell a story so that when a reader sees them in the table of contents, they can scan and get a sense of the larger article. It should also persuade them to read it!)
• Line breaks: Do you have a lot of big paragraphs? Break them up into smaller ones – ideally no more than two sentences. It’s easier to read them on screens this way. 
• Text breaks: Photos, bullet points, subhead and pull quotes all help pull a scanner further into the story, but if you don’t have one of these elements in nearly every section of your content (i.e. if on a particular part of the desktop screen, it is a wall of text), you are likely to lose the reader there. So, because subheads, photos and bullet points are usually there as part of the story, I like to use pull quotes strategically to break up text and help readers with scannability. 
• Bullet points in general: Do you have a written out list of three or more? Make those bullet points for scannability. 

Images: Are the images interesting? Are they beautiful? Do they tell a story? Are they blurry? You want to make sure that the in-line photos support the story for the reader, but also entice the scanner to click or pause (longer time on site, woohoo!)––maybe even to begin reading.