by Nick Sanders
One of the most common mistakes made by students is the lack of knowledge on how to proofread their essay, after they have finished. This often leads to essays being submitted with grammatical and spelling errors, or serious faults in their argument. A lot of marks can be lost on errors that could easily be spotted and changed before handing in, and that can mean the difference between a pass and a fail. Below, I have identified the best ways to proofread your essay, so you can be sure that you’ll achieve the marks you deserve.
1. You should take some time between writing your essay paper and then proofreading it as you want to give yourself an honest opinion of what you have written. You will want to ensure you are actually reading over your paper and not simply reading through what you have just written. Taking this time out will help you be objective to your work and influence the amount of mistakes you will be able to spot. You will also want to complete this at a time of day that is good for you, as you will need to complete the process with minimal distractions around so that you can get the most from the session.
2. Proofread your article backwards, sentence by sentence. This will make you pay attention to spelling and grammar, rather than just the meaning of your paper. Some people find it helps to put a ruler under each line as you read it, so that you focus just on the line in front of you. Make sure each line makes sense, has good sentence structure, all the punctuation it needs, and every word is spelt correctly.
3. You should use your own spellchecker. If you are using a word processor for your academic essays and typing up your essays, then you should consider closely checking that all words are spelt correctly. If you simply leave the program to check over all of your spellings, then you may end up with correctly spelled words, but some with a different meaning than you wanted.
4. Ask for help. If you’re a little unsure of where to place an apostrophe, then you should consider asking a friend who does. Making sure of this, as well as all of your references being correctly displayed will be crucial. These simple mistakes only take a couple of minutes to correct, yet could cost you a lot when you submit.
5. Look over any past papers that you have submitted and see if there are any errors or mistakes that are common among them. You may need to speak to your tutor about this, as they will have a good understanding of your work, and you should note down any commonalities between the various pieces of work.
6. Read your work out loud. When you read your paper aloud, you will be able to recognize if all of your sentences are correctly punctuated. You should also be able to notice a difference between what you have written and what you have meant - this will help you check that your essay flows freely.
7. Ask someone else to take a look. When you have completed reading through your paper you should consider asking a friend at university to take a read through. They will be able to spot some mistakes that you may have missed and will be able to read through your paper with a more objective viewpoint.
8. Read through your paper again. After you have done all of the above, read through the paper again, once for spelling, once for punctuation, and once to check each paragraph makes sense, and links to the one before and after.
Once you have made all of the different checks and changes to your document you will most likely feel a lot more confident about handing in your paper, as these changes will help you ensure that your paper is free form errors and mistakes.
As time goes on you will be come used to checking your work and will be faster at the whole process, being able to quickly spot and solve your mistakes.
About the Author:
After finishing your essay, Nick understands how important it will be to choose an
academic editing professional to make sure your paper has an
essay edit and that it is free from errors before you submit it.