blue pencil

The first step in processing a set of data so obtained is to blue-pencil all entries that, judged by the accompanying remarks, relate to extraneous objects such as insects or bats.

The secretary went into the adjoining room, to return presently with a file of newspapers, stitched neatly together, their columns marked here and there in blue-pencil.

I never do, and Harmer has to blue-pencil my copy mercilessly.

Good and true writing no magazine or newspaper editor will blue-pencil.

And often I have had them blue-pencil wild statements I had made, which, on second thought, I wished withdrawn ... and during all the uproar I never had a reporter break his word, once given.