Editing and Proofreading: General Strategies

Revision includes several independent processes and is aimed to improve the overall structure, thesis, and focus of the paper. Editing and proofreading are usually the final stages. When your final draft is ready, you have to make sure that your grammar, spelling, and punctuation are correct. You should also think about the word choice and sentence structure because these details determine your credibility as a writer. To proofread and edit your papers effectively, you should reread your writing, distancing yourself from the document and considering it from a reader’s perspective. It’s not an easy task, so writing experts from Writers-House decided to help you with some tips.

Editing

Editing means fixing mistakes that you’ve made while writing. Effective editing requires you to know the types of problems that occur most often. When you know your typical errors, you can come up with effective strategies that will help you spot such mistakes in the future.

1. Read your papers aloud

Listen to yourself and look for the sentences that sound awkward, as well as for incomplete phrases and unclear ideas.

• As soon as you see a mistake, stop and change it. Don’t hurry and make sure to fix all kinds of mistakes (structure, spelling, punctuation).
• If some passages are hard to understand or feel awkward, mark these fragments and fix them after you read the entire paper.
• Don’t edit your paper right after you’ve finished writing. Take some time. We recommend that you take a pause for at least a day so that you can distance yourself from the paper and spot more mistakes. If you cannot wait for a day, switch to another task, go for a walk, or do anything that will help you forget about your paper for a while.

2. Read one sentence at a time

We recommend that you take a sheet of paper and cover everything but the line you’re reading now. Read every sentence carefully and determine whether it looks good and expresses your ideas properly.

3. Detect patterns

There must be your personal patterns and mistakes that you do again and again. For example, if you often forget about commas, pay your attention to the places that might need a comma. Some writers also write too many wordy sentences or forget about transitions. List your common mistakes and use this checklist while editing.

However, you may not notice some of your own mistakes. In this case, don’t hesitate to order professional editing on Writers-House.com

4. Learn grammar and punctuation rules

Study grammar and punctuation, look for the rules that you don’t know. If you have a handbook, use it while editing and check it whenever you have any doubts on how you should write a certain sentence.

Proofreading

The final stage is proofreading. Here, you should focus on random mistakes. Once you’ve corrected the final draft, look for accidental errors caused by oversight, computer lagging, or carelessness. Make sure to read your paper one last time to find such errors.

1 Approach your paper as a reader

Sit back, relax, and read your paper like if you were a teacher. What would you notice?

2. Read one sentence at a time

Once again, this is a great approach that allows you to focus on each sentence in particular. Do you see any typos?

3. Read backward

This is another interesting approach. Read your paper from the last sentence to the first one, checking it for spelling errors.