What is the Difference Between Revision and Editing?

The difference between revision and editing lies in their focus and the stages of the writing process they involve. Here is a breakdown of the differences:

Revision:

Focuses on the content, structure, and organization of the text.
Makes major changes to the document, such as modifying the controlling ideas, adding new information, moving around paragraphs, or removing unnecessary information.
Deals with the paper as a whole, considering strengths and weaknesses, arguments, focus, organization, support, and voice, as well as mechanical issues.
Typically occurs before editing.
Involves rewriting entire sections of the paper for the purpose of improving the content.

Editing:

Focuses on sentence-level changes, such as sentence structure and phrasing.
Makes local changes, like correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation, or word choice.
Rearranges words in sentences, substitutes less precise or effective words with more precise and effective ones, and deletes unnecessary words.
Occurs after the major content and structural changes have been made.
Focuses primarily on sentence-level issues like sentence variety and word choice.

In summary, revision deals with the overall content, structure, and organization of a text, while editing involves making more local changes to improve sentence structure, phrasing, and other language elements. Revision typically comes before editing in the writing process.