In another life, I edited some things—short memoirs, journals, a couple of works of political philosophy. I picked up a trick that works pretty well, even on my own writing:
Read it backward, last sentence to first.
The vast majority of mistakes you miss aren’t a product of reading your own writing—they’re missed because you’re reading in your flow of thought and you know what you’re trying to say.
This is what a third party offers—they don’t know what you’re trying to say until they read it. But even they can miss things when they’re in your flow. I read others’ work backward to this day, and still catch things I missed on my first forward read.
Edit: I just had to correct a silly autocorrect because I didn’t read my own writing backward. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Read it backward, last sentence to first.
The vast majority of mistakes you miss aren’t a product of reading your own writing—they’re missed because you’re reading in your flow of thought and you know what you’re trying to say.
This is what a third party offers—they don’t know what you’re trying to say until they read it. But even they can miss things when they’re in your flow. I read others’ work backward to this day, and still catch things I missed on my first forward read.
Edit: I just had to correct a silly autocorrect because I didn’t read my own writing backward. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯