1) Heads-up or tablet digitize you data in tablet/screen inches (not UTMs or State Plane Feet).

2) Proof your work.  Convert your shape file to a coverage and get good topology. Code later.

3) Identify at least 4 good registration points that surround the data you digitized.  You can use more than 4 if you wish (might be better).  Put tics at these locations.  If you are creating your coverage via heads-up entry of a shape file in AV, perhaps mark the locations of the tics with small circles (you will delete these later).  The Arcedit session might look like:
 
 

EDITCOVER COV1	Opens your coverage
EDITFEATURE TIC	sets the editfeature
SEL ALL	clear all other tics away
DELETE	they are gone
ADD	enter your new ones
SAVE	done
QUIT

4) Create an empty coverage with the tics you just entered (CREATE COV2 COV1)

5) Enter the correct UTM or State Plane coordinates into the tic file (use tables) of the empty coverage.  The sequence of commands might look like:
 
 

TABLES	opens tables
SEL COV2.TIC	selects the tic file
RES IDTIC = 1	reselects the first tic
CALC XTIC = 12345	put the good UTM for X
CALC YTIC = 98765	put the good UTM for Y
ASEL	sel all tics
RES IDTIC = 2	get tic 2
CALC XTIC = 43216	and so on until done
CALC YTIC = 757575
QUIT

6) Transform the coverage with features into the empty coverage with real-world tics.  The command will look like

TRANSFORM COV1 COV2

7) Be sure to inspect the RMS report.  Re-do the tics of RMS is unacceptable.  They should be below 0.005.

8) Check to make sure the data overlay other features correctly.

9) Code the data.