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Grammar

What Is the Difference Between Revising and Editing?

Revising and editing are separate steps in refining your content. Revision involves substance, while editing involves language, grammar, and mechanics. Both are key to creating strong, polished content.

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

Every writer knows that the first draft is rarely the finished product — revising and editing rounds occur between the rough draft and publication. 

Revision and editing both describe work done to improve and refine a piece of writing, but they are two separate parts of the overall process. 

Learn about the differences between revising and editing to get the most out of the process. Then, streamline your editing process with the Originality.ai Grammar Checker.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • Revising centers on the substance, clarity and organization of the overall content.
  • While editing gets more granular, digging into sentence-level structure, grammar, and mechanics.

Revising vs. Editing

Revising and editing address different aspects of written content. Each is a separate step in the writing process, with its focus and goals for improvement or clarification. 

Revising

Revision occurs before editing begins. The writer typically does it before the content is sent to an editor. When a first draft is complete, the writer begins revising by considering the overall strengths and weaknesses of the content itself, such as:

  • Clarity: Are the ideas clear and well communicated?
  • Argument: Is the argument presented and supported well?
  • Focus: Does the piece veer off-track?
  • Organization: Does anything need to be moved around, deleted or added?
  • Comprehensiveness: Is the information enough? Too much?
  • Voice and tone: Are they on target for the topic, audience, and brand?

Revision allows the writer to step back and observe the writing from a different perspective. It’s the time to ensure the message is conveyed as intended and consider how a reader will experience it. 

While revision may sound a lot like structural editing, this step comes even before those big-picture edits. It's the strengthening of the writing and messaging before editing begins. 

Editing

After revision, editing begins. Depending on the type and length of writing, the editing process can involve up to four different stages or types of editing:

  • Content editing: Big-picture, substance, theme
  • Line editing: Stylistic refinement, prose tightening, word choice, readability
  • Copy editing: Grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting
  • Proofreading: Final polish, typos, precision check

The editing process moves from the big picture to the tiny details, focusing on different aspects of writing at each step. Whether working with an editor or self-editing, it is best to break it into stages.

Why Are There So Many Types of Editing?

During editing, there are many things to look for structurally, at the sentence level, and in grammar mechanics. 

Breaking up the process into stages helps to make it more manageable and allows you to narrow the focus on just a few details at a time. 

Each round of edits is completed before the next one begins. For instance, the big-picture developmental and structural edits should be completed, and a new version of the content should be drafted before line edits begin. 

The same should happen again before moving on to the copy editing and proofreading stages. 

With each step, the copy gets more refined and polished until it is ready to be finalized for publication.

Final Thoughts: How to Revise and Edit Your Content

If you are the writer and editor of a piece of content, you need to go through each of these steps independently. However, when you spend a lot of time with your own words, seeing the writing from a reader’s perspective can be challenging. But it can be done, and there are ways to make it easier.

Create some distance between the writing and revising phases. If your timeline allows, let the writing sit a bit and work on something else, go on a walk, read a book — in short, take a break, so you can see them with fresh eyes when you return. 

When you return to revise, have a checklist ready of what you are looking for. Read the work aloud to listen for any gaps in the overall structure, argument, organization, and completeness of your writing. Make your revisions, then take another break before moving on to editing. Grab your editing checklist. Allow for breaks before each phase. 

Giving yourself time to gain a fresh perspective is an excellent way to refresh your eye for detail at each step. In the end, you’ll have a polished piece that is revised, edited, and ready for publication. 

Then, to complete your editing checks, review your copy with the Originality.ai Grammar Checker to capture any spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes.

Discover more editing and grammar best practices in our top guides:

Melissa Fanella

Melissa Fanella is a writer, editor, and marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in content and messaging for businesses and nonprofits. Her expertise is in crafting authentic, people-first content that is compelling and engaging for audiences and positioned for business goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to fill out the entire form?

No, that’s one of the benefits, only fill out the areas which you think will be relevant to the prompts you require.

Why is the English so poor for some prompts?

When making the tool we had to make each prompt as general as possible to be able to include every kind of input. Not to worry though ChatGPT is smart and will still understand the prompt.

In The Press

Originality.ai has been featured for its accurate ability to detect GPT-3, Chat GPT and GPT-4 generated content. See some of the coverage below…

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Featured by Leading Publications

Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

Vahan Petrosyan

searchenginejournal.com

I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

Tom Demers

searchengineland.com

After extensive research and testing, we determined Originality.ai to be the most accurate technology.

Rock Content Team

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Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

ranktracker.com

ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

Ashley Stahl

forbes.com

Originality.ai Do give them a shot! 

Sri Krishna

venturebeat.com

For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

Industry Trends

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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