You have developed, written and rewritten an excellent paper, selected appealing examples and written interesting paragraphs, and then presented an excellent conclusion. But are you done now? Certainly not! There is one more step to take: proofreading your essay. Here you will learn how to proofread an essay using 12 helpful tips to improve your proofreading skills.
1. Make a copy of it.
When the material is printed rather than viewed on a screen, many people find it easier to read it properly. We understand that we all need to do our part to help the environment by reducing our pressures, but when your quality is at stake we believe you can afford some slack. Just remember to recycle your paper when you’re done.
2. Use the spelling and grammar checker at your own risk.
Spell checks are useful as a first step in identifying high-level problems. On the other hand, artificial spelling and grammar checkers are limited. You can miss many basic grammatical errors. They also occasionally make significant errors that can mislead even the most careful writer. Note that the spell checker only detects spelling mistakes. They don’t warn you about ungrammatically incorrect terms that are spelled correctly.
3. Take some time off before proofreading.
If you want to proofread properly, your mind and eyes have to be sharp. Before you start proofreading, take a break, have a cup of tea, and go for a walk. Clear your head and prepare to focus. Then when you’re ready, jump right in.
4. Control your attention.
If you’re reading quickly, you might only focus on one or two points in each line. Professional proofreaders use the practice of reading aloud the text they are editing. This practice encourages you to say each word, activating your auditory receptors in the process, allowing you to hear how the material sounds as it is read. When you try to read something quickly, your brain is forced to skip some parts and make automatic additions.
You have to force your vision to focus on each word separately. If you use any of these techniques to get your eyes to read carefully and correctly, you might even be shocked at how many more mistakes you make.
5. Conduct a few proofreading sessions.
Proofreading is a time-consuming activity, but the more you focus on it, the more you will benefit. If you try to spot and fix all the mistakes in a proofreading session, you risk losing focus and potentially missing big mistakes. Sometimes it pays to check both spelling and punctuation errors individually. This exercise will make spotting mistakes much easier. For the different types of errors you discover, you can use a number of proofreading methods.
6. Read it backwards.
Because it encourages you to focus on each word individually, this proofreading method is great for finding spelling problems. Our minds will often fool us into reading the correct spelling based on the overall context of the paragraph. Because it encourages you to focus on each word individually, this proofreading method is great for finding spelling mistakes. Start at the end of your text and work your way up until you reach the end of the essay.
They don’t care about punctuation or grammar; They only deal with spelling problems. Many proofreaders also advise reading documents backwards sentence by sentence. This forces you to think about each sentence in contrast to the rest of the writing, which is useful for spotting grammatical problems.
7. Check for correctness.
There are occasions when the alternative you choose is less important than the consistency of your entire essay when it comes to writing. Regular proofreading of your work will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. You can learn to look for common mistakes you make during the writing process if you are aware of them. You will eventually learn to stay away from them completely. However, make sure that you do not switch between different solutions in the following cases:
- If you use single or double quotes.
- When bullets are followed by periods.
- The difference between American English and British English words.
- Capitalization of technical terms.
- The rule for writing numbers as words or digits is “one” through “nine” and using digits for 10 and up.
8. Check everything again.
The most important lesson I’ve learned about proofreading a job is to be extremely wary of mistakes that trickle in after editing. They appear when you’re doing your final proofreading before submitting your work, and you notice an awkward sentence that may have been improved with rewriting. You make the update but don’t verify it, resulting in a new error in your work. If necessary, make minor changes during the proofreading phase, but double-check the revised paragraph.
9. Divide your essay into smaller sections.
The task of dividing the material into smaller parts becomes more manageable. Read each paragraph carefully. Then rest before moving on to the next. This will not distract you from the task at hand and will allow you to focus fully on the part of the writing you are proofreading.
10. Check the numbers.
Be aware of outdated references in the text such as “see figure 3” or “see figure 5”, especially if you have changed the document structure and the figure/figure numbers have changed. Likewise, if you ever mention the total number of parts in an essay, check that the number you are referring to is exactly the number you received after your last editing session.
11. Use of Resources Available to You.
If you’ve already written your essay, spelling and grammar checkers can help you spot some proofreading mistakes. Make any necessary adjustments to all green/red underlined words and phrases.
In case you don’t want to proofread or even write your essay yourself (maybe you don’t have the right skills), just find a reputable essay writing service. Professional writing companies get “Write my essay” requests from students every day. This way, you can just pay an experienced essay writer to write or proofread your work, saving you a lot of time and effort. Most writing services even offer reports to help students learn from their mistakes.
12. Avoid plagiarism at all costs.
You don’t want to be caught plagiarizing someone else’s work: schools typically run essay files using plagiarism detection software like Turnitin, which flags essays with a large amount of content that matches internet sources. To avoid this problem, you should endeavor not to simply copy content from publications unless the content is appropriately cited. Remember to use a plagiarism checker when you’re done proofreading your essay, just to be sure.
Last word
Get help from experts if you are unsure about your writing after trying all the above methods to make your essay flawless. However, make sure you do your homework about the company you choose to proofread your work.
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