Editing tip

When you’re practicing GESTALT/SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, i.e. editing your work — and here we’re talking about print materials that you’ve actually printed out to work on away from the screen — do you ever find yourself using red pencil/pen so you can see the edits more clearly?

If so, let’s talk.

First of all, good on you for printing your ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS out to edit them! Research has shown that the mental engagement with physical objects when learning or editing, with paper and pencil, is far greater than with a screen.

The red pencil, however, may not be such a good idea. It reeks of spelling tests and 5-paragraph essays and being told that you have FAILED in some way great or small.

Of course you’ve failed. That’s the whole purpose of writing ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS at the top of your page or in the name of your file. You don’t need to be spanked for it.

So instead of using a red pencil or pen, why not a blue or a green one? They’re not as visible as the red, perhaps — there’s a reason we use red for stop signs and essay corrections after all — but they also do not trigger the feeling of alarm we can get from red.

If you think you might miss a blue/green edit, then use an actual highlighter to prick out the spots you need to see without straining yourself.

This has been a quick How To Do Stuff Betterer tip from your Lichtenbergian.

Not that finale, which has always sucked at updating its own files, can find its own libraries of things like dynamic markings or numerical tempo markings...