What is the difference between an expensive steakhouse and a fast-food burger place?

They both use the same ingredients for their main product: beef. Yet the experience can be vastly different. When you have dinner at a great steakhouse, it’s not just about the food. Although it may be wonderful, it’s also the experience that counts. The decor, table settings, and exceptional service make a huge difference in your dining experience.

On the other hand, the experience is totally different when you go through a cheap fast-food burger place. There is a good chance your burger will be sloppily put together and the person at the drive-through window will be halfway paying attention. And there is a decent chance something about your order will be wrong.

It’s not just about ingredients. It’s about taking the raw ingredients, preparing them the right way, then serving them to people with care and attention so they have a great experience.

The same thing is true for our words. You can write a first draft and then publish it, or you can take care to make sure it is edited. It’s the difference between a fast-food burger and a high-quality steak. Same ingredients, different presentation.

When you edit your writing, you are taking care to make sure your grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall content are as good as you can make it. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to hire an editor for everything you write, but it does mean we should take the baseline steps to ensure that whatever we publish is excellent.

I recommend, at the very least, re-reading your material a couple of times and running your writing through Grammarly, as well as doing a spell-check. Those are free and very simple ways to improve your writing.

We’re all in a hurry. We all have things to do. But if you call yourself a writer, you owe it to your readers to give them a great experience by making sure your writing is as excellent as it can be.