Guide to Editing and Proofreading Academic Work

While creating an excellent assignment takes time, it is important to ensure it answers all the questions, flows well, looks good (formatting) and is free from spelling and grammatical mistakes. Here’s how to edit and proofread your academic work effectively to produce a high-quality academic work.

What is Editing?

Once you have finished your work, you should check the assignment for things like tone, structure, and if the content flows in a logical manner.

This is done as part of Editing and Proof reading process.

Things to check during Editing:

• Go through the checklist (for the assignment) to see if everything is covered.
• Check if the content answers the assignment question
• Is the word count proper? (it can be plus or minus 10 percent)
• Does the Introduction and Conclusion look proper?
• Have you paraphrased information from the sources to avoid plagiarism?
• If you have used any quotations, have they been copied correctly?
• Have all the resources used been mentioned in the references section?

Once you’re happy with the work, you can proceed with proof-reading.

What is Proofreading?

Proofreading involves checking the content for grammatical errors, and its appearance.

You check for things such as grammatical, spelling, typing mistakes, and if the work is presented in a style (fonts, line spacing, etc.) requested in the assignment.

Things to check during proofreading:

• Check for spelling mistakes and Grammatical mistakes (use of tenses, apostrophes, full stops, commas and colons).

• Read every sentence to see if it sounds right.
  Is any sentence too long? Should it be broken down into small sentences. Should you make shorter paragraphs?
  Are you repeating certain word/s repeatedly? Replace some of them with their synonyms.

• Check Acronyms. These should be spelled out in full on first use.

• Check the presentation – Font size/type, line spacing, margins

Proofreading is the final (and an important) stage of the assignment writing process. Poorly written work with grammatical mistakes, casual tone, and without proper formatting can result in you losing precious marks.

Here are some more tips for better editing & proofreading:

• If you have just finished your assignment, take a break before you sit down for editing/proofreading.
• If the work is very important (dissertation, capstone project), you should consider printing out the work so that it becomes easier to look for errors, and to comment.
• You can read aloud to see if the flow is right and the sentences are making sense. You may ask someone else to read aloud the work as they are more likely to pick up new errors
• Focus on improving one thing at a time – spelling, grammar, presentation referencing, and so on.

References

Osmond, A. (2016) Academic writing and grammar for students. London: Sage.

Sandie, G. (2013) How to proofread your own writing: tips and techniques to help you produce an error-free manuscript. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

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