Proofreading 101

So, you did your mindmap, you wrote your drafts, you have something you are 99.9% pleased with, but is it finished...not by a long shot.

Anecdote time. It's 2011, I am in my third and final year and I have, what I believe to be, the most wonderful piece of work I have ever produced in my three years of undergraduate study. It is, as far as I am aware, 10,000 words of sheer brilliance (it really wasn't!). I have it printed and bound in hardback (because why not?) and I have dropped in the required two copies for submission. I am at home and I casually cast my eyes lovingly over my masterpiece and that's when I see it, Page 1, third line, the word "form", not "from" as it should be, "form". A simple typing error that autocorrect wouldn't spot and which in the heat of the moment I neglected to see.

Imagine my abject horror as I realised that it could not be the sole error and even if it was,

it was a blemish on my work that could never be removed, but it could have been avoided if I knew what I knew now.

As with planning, mindmapping, even writing to some extent, there is no single one way to accomplish proofreading (despite what some people would have you believe). There are a variety of approaches which can be adopted and to be honest, I have found that using more than one approach yields the best results.

Reading out loud is an incredibly useful trick (I cannot oversell this one enough!) but, it is not for everyone to stand in the middle of their room and recite aloud in Shakespearean tones their monologue, ("Alas poor brain"...or was that just me?) and in this case I would recommend that you have your work read to you, either by an obliging friend or family member, or by some read-back software, the voices of which are far more pleasurable to hear than they once were.

Having someone read over your work is no bad thing, just as it is no bad thing to read over someone else's work (provided that you have both nearly completed your work - see the Plagiarism blogpost for the reason why) as another person can not just advise you on spelling but also clarity of argument, repetition and sentence length, to name just a few things that you should be reading for.

The most important thing I can reccomend however is distance and time. When completing your assignment you should factor into your timing (time management tips will be a future Hints & Tips entry!) two days at the end prior to submission. On the first of these days you do...NOTHING!! At least nothing assignment related, just leave it alone, don't even look at it, go out somewhere, do something completely unrelated, binge watch a series, I do not mind but whatever it is, it should be completely disconnected from your work and it should occupy your mind. Then, the day after, come back to your work, nice and calmly and just read it, slowly, line by line and I promise you that errors will jump off the page at you.

Of course there is the whole world of spelling and grammar checking software and services which are avaialble for you to call upon for your work and I would not seek to discourage you from using them in the slightest as they can indeed take the strain off of your mind somewhat and do well at catching what might be called the simple and "stupid" mistakes. What I would say however, is to beware relying on such software and services entirely as they are not infalliable, nor perfect, especially when it comes to distinguishing the slight variations which exist between say, British and American English. Rather, see them for what they are, a tool to supplment your own personal proofreading of your work. That is after all, one of the fundamental analytical and critical skills that you are meant to develop in your time in Higher Education.

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