Too often, I forget that the word "revision" contains the word "vision." The process of rewriting requires the writer to see the work with fresh eyes.

To clear your eyes, it helps to create a distance of time and space between you and the text. When that distance is great enough -- months, or even years -- the text seems almost new, as if written by another hand.

When I read a passage from my own book, "Writing Tools," for example, I'm shocked at how strange it seems. "I don't remember writing that paragraph at all," I've declared to more than one audience.

Distance helps revision even if you are writing on deadline. The trick is a brief escape from the working draft -- a walk around the block, a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.

On deadline, when changes have to be considered quickly, I apply a simple vision test to my prose, a test I learned in my eye doctor's office years ago. I call it: "A little better, a little worse, about the same."

Most of us have sat in that chair in a darkened room with the eye chart projected on the wall. The doctor swings a machine over and rests it against your face to check the power of your lenses and the clarity of your vision. (Thanks to Norma at Dr. Updegraff's office for providing the name of this equipment. It's a phoropter!)

As your vision gets sharper, the distinctions between lenses become more difficult to perceive: "A little better?" the technician asks. "A little worse? About the same?" Think of it as a literal form of re-vision.

The great editorial writer Paul Greenberg once told me that he knows when he's about finished with a column or editorial: "It's when I take all the commas out, then put them all back in."

That leads me to this strategy: Every change in copy should pass the vision test. It has to make the story at least "a little better." If the change makes it worse, or keeps it about the same, stick with the original.

Every writer needs a phoropter.

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Listen to Roy's newest podcast on Writing Tool #25. For all of Roy's podcasts on Writing Tools, click here.

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