I found this exercise interesting in that it narrowed attention to details of our partner’s piece (which, of course, is what is meant by microediting!*). My inclination would probably be to macroedit first, but as we heard in class, that’s a matter of personal preference. And maybe it would vary depending on the piece.
I tried to keep the main points from Bell in mind and was able to use at least one of them. The tasks of underlining, circling, and highlighting kept me pretty busy, though, and I realized that a lot more time would be needed to apply all of Bell’s suggestions. I can see it as an excellent reference for future editing, whether of my work or others. In fact, I’ve used some of her suggestions in my reviewing my own work already.
I have to agree with Shelby about finding quite a number of adjectives essential to the meaning of a phrase. This brings to mind that the conversation between writer and editor can help to untangle some of that, by jointly considering which ones are essential.
Using the index cards was somewhat helpful, and this seems silly to say – but I’d probably use just one to follow line-by-line instead of framing with the two.
* This, in itself, is an example of redundancy, as mentioned by Bell :).