Meeting my student for the first time proved to be a little more difficult than anticipated. He was reluctant to speak about his work or to let me read it. My approach was to try and make him comfortable by asking him about his hobbies, favourite movies, tv shows, etc. Slowly, my student became more comfortable and informed me that he struggled when it came to editing his papers.
Although I did not have concrete resources to offer him, I felt that it was best to give him tricks that I (and many of my peers) have used when writing papers. The best tool to rely on when trying to edit an essay is to first take a break and distance yourself from your own work. It allows the student to step away from the essay and clear their head. When trying to edit an essay as soon as it is finished, writers tend to be too caught up in their work and cannot see the flaws or mistakes in their paper. Once they have taken at least 24 hours to distance themselves from their writing, then they should print out a hard copy of their work. Reading their essay on the computer makes it easier to skip over typos and miss any other grammatical or structural errors that they may have made; thus, using a pen and reading through a hard copy of their paper makes it easier to pick up on mistakes, etc.
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