Free Editing Checklist for Students | Revise & Polish Essays

When it comes to writing essays, you need a systematic way to revise and edit your work. While a revising checklist makes your essay more convincing, an editing checklist makes it look more professional.

Together, these checklists take the guesswork out of improving your first draft. Revising focuses on big picture aspects, like the structure and content, and editing focuses on grammar and punctuation.

This guide breaks down the essay-writing workflow, provides interactive revising and editing checklists you can use right now, and includes a free printable PDF to keep on hand for peer editing workshops and in-class assignments.

Pair these checklists with Quillbot’s Grammar Checker to turn in your best work every time.

Revising vs editing: What’s the difference?

Writing an essay isn’t a one-and-done approach. It happens in several steps, which generally follow this order:

• Prewriting: Choose a main idea, plan the paragraph topics, and gather evidence.
• Drafting: Turn an essay outline or essay plan into a complete first draft.
• Revising: Improve the main idea, structure, cohesion, and level of detail.
• Editing: Fix typos and errors in grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.

The writing process is recursive, which means it’s natural to revisit previous steps as your paper develops. For example, you might end up gathering more evidence while you’re drafting or revising. No matter how you approach the process, it’s more efficient to revise before you edit, and your workflow should always end with a dedicated final edit.

Revising checklist (structure and content)

Before you edit for small mistakes, use this revising checklist to evaluate your essay from a macro perspective. Focus on your main idea, paragraph flow, and level of detail first, and edit individual sentences after you know which ones will actually be part of your final draft.

Editing checklist (grammar, punctuation, and clarity)

Now that you’ve revised your essay’s structure and content, it’s time to focus on the micro details. Use this editing checklist to catch grammar mistakes and ensure that every sentence reads clearly and professionally.

Essay editing checklist

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• The draft successfully uses commas in these situations:

  • • Before the coordinating conjunction (like “and,” “but,” “or,” and “so”) that joins the two complete sentences (aka independent clauses) in a compound sentence
    • To separate three or more words or phrases in a list, including an Oxford comma before the coordinating conjunction that joins the last item to the list
    • After an introductory word, phrase, or clause
    • Before and after nonrestrictive clauses that aren’t essential to a sentence’s meaning
    • Between coordinate adjectives that modify the same noun

    • Between a city and a state

• The draft avoids unnecessary commas in these places:

  • • Before subordinating conjunctions, like “when,” “if,” and “because.”

    • Before a coordinating conjunction that connects two words or two phrases

• Each sentence ends with a period (no run-on sentences).

• Each question ends with a question mark.

• Each compound sentence has a comma + a coordinating conjunction or a semicolon between the two independent clauses (no comma splices). 

• Semicolons are only used in these two situations:

  • • Lists of three or more phrases that already contain commas

    • Between two complete sentences that are closely related

• All of the sentences express a complete thought with a subject and a verb (no sentence fragments).

• The draft has a variety of different types of sentences and sentence lengths.

• Lists of three or more words or phrases have parallel structure because each item is the same part of speech.

• When sentences end with parenthetical citations, the period goes after the parentheses.

• When a sentence ends with a quotation, the period is inside the end quotation marks.

• Every apostrophe in the draft is part of a contraction or a possessive noun (and never in plural nouns that aren’t also possessive).

• Each contraction (like “isn’t” or “won’t”) has an apostrophe.

• Each possessive noun has an apostrophe.

• The writer uses “its,” “their,” and “whose” as possessive pronouns (which don’t have apostrophes) instead of the contractions “it’s” (“it is”), “they’re” (“they are”), and “who’s” (“who is”). 

• Each sentence has correct subject-verb agreement, especially when there’s a prepositional phrase between the subject and the verb.

  • • Singular subjects have present-tense verbs that end in “-s” (e.g., “the student has” and “the student edits”).

    • Plural subjects and compound subjects have present-tense verbs that don’t end in “-s” (e.g., “students have” and “students write”).

• Sentences that describe actions or situations from the past have past-tense verbs.

• Unless allowed by the instructor or required by the assignment, the draft avoids second-person pronouns, like “you” and “your.”

• Every pronoun (like “it” or “they”) has a clear antecedent (a noun that it represents).

• The writer uses active voice instead of passive voice wherever possible.

• The draft is free of sound-alike errors, such as:

  • • Accept vs. except
    • Affect vs. effect
    • Apart vs. a part
    • Its vs. it’s
    • Lose vs. loose
    • Passed vs. past
    • Than vs. then
    • There vs. their vs. they’re
    • To vs. too

    • Who’s vs. whose

• Date and number ranges are separated with an en dash (–) instead of a hyphen (-), unless your style guidelines require otherwise.

• Compound adjectives are connected with hyphens (e.g., “nine-year-old cat”), except when the first word is an adverb that ends in “-ly” (e.g., “commonly confused words”).

• Titles of longer works (books, journals, films) have italics. Titles of shorter works (articles, poems, or short stories) have quotation marks.

• Quotation marks are only used when quoting a source or piece of dialogue or for a title (no scare quotes).

• Proper nouns and the important words in titles follow capitalization rules. (Check your style guidelines, if applicable, for any special rules about capitalizing titles. For example, APA capitalizes “with” in a title, but MLA does not.)

Nice work on editing your essay!

Error logs: How to improve grammar over time

One of the most effective ways to improve as a writer is to track your repeated mistakes, which writing teachers call “patterns of error.” For example, if a grammar check shows that your essay has several missing apostrophes, that’s a pattern of error. An error log is a running record of the errors you make most often and the best ways to avoid them.

To use an error log, record these key details for each pattern of error in your writing.

• Date and assignment
• Type of error (e.g., commas missing after introductory clauses)
• The grammar or punctuation rule that helps you avoid it
• Corrected sentence

Free printable editing checklist

Need an editing checklist that you can print or save for later? Download Quillbot’s free Revising and Editing Checklist to keep on hand for peer reviews and in-class assignments.

Frequently asked questions about editing checklists

What is peer editing?

Peer editing is a common activity in writing classrooms, like first-year English or high school language arts. It involves reading a classmate’s work, marking grammar mistakes, and offering suggestions for improvement.

In most cases, students who are editing each other’s work have an editing checklist to follow.

Peer editing is an excellent way to sharpen your writing skills and collaborate with your classmates. If you also run your assignments through Quillbot’s Grammar Checker, errors hardly stand a chance.

What is proofreading?

Proofreading is the final stage of the text editing process. It focuses on identifying and correcting mechanical errors, such as spelling, punctuation, and formatting issues, as well as ensuring consistency with the relevant style guide.

Proofreading doesn’t typically involve rephrasing sentences, improving word choice, or checking factual accuracy.

Why not use Quillbot’s free Grammar Checker to help you proofread your text?

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