How do you eat yours?

Do you read the whole document through and edit whatever needs doing? Or do you look for different things- e.g., first look at footnotes, second look at grammar, etc.? Do you break it up into sections or do it in one fell swoop?

I haven't got a consistent approach and am thinking I should maybe adopt one.

Hi Keep_Calm, I don't really have a consistent approach either, at least not consciously.  It depends on the extent of editing needed too. I generally tend to read through the whole thing, marking out any typos etc as I go along, and change wording where needed.  Then I'll have another read and think about what I actually want to say and whether or not I've managed it. If not, I'll stick in sentences and paragraphs here and there with what I want, then re-read again and see how to make it all flow ok.  Then make all the changes, leave it a bit and hope off to a coffee shop where I'll sit and read it all and make any further changes. For some reason I find doing the proof reading like that in a coffee shop makes it easier to see where I need to make changes, maybe it's the change of environment, I dunno!  :-)

I do the coffee shop thing too!

I read the whole document a few times and try to leave a bt of time before each reading. It's hard to let go because each tme I rad it there is some fault, or perceived fault, I haven't noticed before. I just get it to an acceptable level.

Yeah that's how I feel Eska. I feel like I've not got to the point where I can just edit for style/consitency because I keep thinking of more things I haven't covered and how I might shoehorn them in. It certainly hasn't been a linear process from writing to editing. Getting v. frustrated!

Might try the change of environment thing Algae, ta :-)

ok, here's something I do, and I'm not sure if it's a 'good' thing but in situations where you keep on and on tinkering with something, it helps sometimes....
When I have something that I keep wanting to add more things into, firstly I talk to someone non-academic about it. like my mum. I'll call her up and start telling her about when I'm working on and explaining it to her, obviously in lay-mans terms as she'll not get the technical bit. That helps me to see what the most important bits are, the bits that are necessary to understand what's happening. It's amazing how often I overlook hugely important simple things in favour of the latest exciting thing that might be interesting only to me!
then I'll take myself off somewhere away from my books and read through what I've got. If all the important bits are there, I concentrate on just the style/consistency of the text. Any other points that I feel I should include I'll write in the margin. Then a few days later after not looking at it at all, I'll head back to the coffee shop, re-read and see if the extra bits are still important and worth including. And if I can't make up my mind, I'll put it away til the last minute, so I don't have time to include them and I'll have to give it to my sup without further changes!
Like I said, I'm not sure if this last bit is a good thing, but I do tend to go off on tangents which seem vitally important and interesting to me at the time so it helps me!

depends how long the document is, if its not too long, i read through it have a note book next to me and jot down as i go through what things need changing or adding or improving. Then i go through my list to see which is the easiest to do, i do all the easy ones first and cross them out of my note book to give me more time for the harder ones. Then i make a coffe because i am all happy that it looks like i have done alot of editing (although it maybe that they are all easy and dont take long) and then i have this long massive break which seems to never end, then.. i read through whats left in my list and panic because what is left is hard and time is getting on.

And thats my story
:p