Writers are often told to wait a day or two after writing a draft before revisions.
But an experiment from Carnegie Mellon shows a problem with this method.
Researchers seeded a technical document with logical gaps. They gave it to two groups of readers: those briefed on the subject, and those who read it cold.
Who do you think caught more of the errors?
Readers who were briefed on the subject caught fewer gaps than readers who came to it cold. This is because briefed readers were able to draw on their background knowledge to fill in the gaps left by the writer.
Every writer is the briefed reader of their own draft, and waiting a day doesn't change that.
So the gaps survive every revision.
Rereading your draft won't show you the logical gaps. Instead, writers should check drafts with a procedure that doesn't depend on reading like a stranger.
This video provides such a procedure.