Cognitive Bias

Buster Benson wrote a great article with a Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet. You can find it here.

Then  John Manoogian III diagrammed it.

Here is the standard editing system, from larger to smaller scale, which means from to the first to the last step, as shown in RideThePen.

1. Developmental Editing:  This step refers to storytelling. If you think anything is wrong with your plot, characters, motivations… those are the first things you have to take care of. They will often require a lot of re-writing. I’m a big fan of coming in prepared and only starting to write once you know your story and your characters very well. This will almost completely spare you any developmental editing. Yay! The best checklist for developmental editing you can find anywhere (in my opinion) was created by yours truly, and you can download the PDF here for free.
2. Line Editing: The second step zooms in a bit more, and deals with paragraph structure, sentence flow, choice of words, etc… How does your language sound and flow? Editing gets really interesting here. Don’t be afraid to re-write entire paragraphs, especially if you are new to writing. You will be so much happier with your story in the end, and you will learn a lot during the process.
3. Copy Editing: We are moving closer to simple mechanics here. This is about grammar and punctuation, and in most cases, you can objectively tell what’s right or wrong. Don’t hesitate to outsource this step, and also the following final one, if you can afford it. It won’t take anything away from your creative work, and you will save yourself much of the boredom of editing.
4. Proofreading: As the last step, check for typos. It needs to be done in order to look professional. No excuse – yes, I’m talking to you! As a reader, you probably know that too many typos in a text are annoying as hell and can throw you out of the illusion fast. So just do it.