I work in software, and I know for a fact that mistakes happen in anything you write, from structured computer code to your novel. I'm reminded of this because it seems my more popular Tweets will contain a spelling or grammar mistake which mocks me every time it's retweeted!
Getting a better product post-editing involves creating different ways to scrutinise your writing. And there are several tools and services to help your editing - from the basic spellchecker to Grammar tools, to looking at what you've written a few weeks later, to getting someone else to edit for you (always the best option if you can afford it).
Each pass helps, and ideally used right, it helps solve the 'low hanging fruit', the easy wins you can do. You'd feel dumb paying for an editor to check for items you could have used a spellchecker for, after all!
Increasingly, though, an additional tool in my editing arsenal is using text to speech functions. You can find my preferred site here, which has a good selection of voices,
These tools aren't perfect and can still sound a bit robotic in places. However, they do allow me to experience my writing in a different way. Occasionally I'll write a sentence, come back to it and wonder 'does that read how I think it reads?'. Tools like this help.
Anything which shifts your perception is helpful. As I know through my software work, errors and mistakes often happen right in front of our eyes, but they're damn difficult to spot.
In studies its interesting how little of a sentence we'll actually read - it's estimated to be as low as 28% (see references below). That's not great when you're trying to find every mistake you can
This method is great for checking how a paragraph flows and, unlike reading, when a word is out of place, it often creates a jarring feeling that's hard to ignore. I also find myself more attuned to overuse of words.
That said, it won't pick up spelling. Or for me, when I'm writing a phrase, I use a lot and not sure if it's "I cannot bare" or "I cannot bear".
Anything which shifts your perception is helpful. As I know through my software work, errors and mistakes often happen right in front of our eyes, but they're damn difficult to spot.
But like I said, editing is not a single method or tool. It's about having a toolbox to make improvements. This is a fun one - it's also really great to experience your writing be spoken aloud.
References
How Little Do Users Read?
Why it's impossible for you not to read this sentence
Can Our Brains Really Read Jumbled Words as Long as The First And Last Letters Are Correct?