What is Proofreading?
Proofreading is the last step before submission of your assignment. It includes reviewing your whole assignment to check mistakes in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and content.
It is a step of checking for the correctness of your assignment. Proofreading can either be done by yourself or by someone else. It also includes whether your assignment explains the main idea clearly.
- Improves quality.
- Grammar mistakes are corrected.
- Spelling mistakes are corrected.
- Last check before Submission.
It makes sure that the work you’re submitting is of quality. Also, the reader won’t find any silly mistakes in your assignment. So if you want to write an assignment without any mistakes then you have to proofread your assignment.
Even if you’re good at writing, you still make mistakes as this is human nature but the checker always cuts marks for these writing mistakes.
What is the Aim of Proofreading?
Proofreading makes a quality assignment by correcting mistakes and making it perfect. The two main things before the submission of your work are to check whether your ideas are related to your topic and to check whether your assignment writings has correct sentences so that your assignment has meaningful content.
Writing outstanding assignments involves in-depth proofreading. Also, proofreading makes an excellent assignment. Without editing, reviewing, and revising your work before submitting it, you cannot write an assignment of good quality.
Proofreading makes it easier for readers to understand our assignment easily. Errors can be annoying for the readers. Since it’s important for our message to be understood, it’s important to correct your silly mistakes.
- Proofreading makes your assignment professional.
- Proofreading makes sure that your assignment is meaningful and related to the topic.
- There are tools to identify errors in your assignment but human and machine checking is different. Computers cannot check for every mistake like a human can.
- Every proofreader checks their work differently. Proofreaders are for making sure your assignments are excellent. They identify both simple and complex mistakes in your assignment.
They must be able to identify errors for correction. Some proofreading companies have their proofreaders correct the assignment while the writer reads them aloud. It is helpful for proofreaders to check the work more than once.
Nine Effective Tips to Proofread Your Assignment:
1. Check for one type of mistake at one time:
Go through your assignment many times. First, check the sentence structure. Next, check the punctuation, spelling, and vocabulary.
2. Proofread after a whole day:
You must wait a whole day before proofreading your work. Take a break by giving yourself some time off. You’ll see your writing with new eyes when you check your assignment.
3. Read your content aloud:
It is easier to check for errors when you hear what you’ve written. You can easily come across any error when you read your content out loud.
4. Read your assignment backward:
Check for mistakes in your assignment by reading it backward. Start checking your work from the last sentence and go to the first sentence. This is a better way to check for errors. When reading from the start your brain has an idea of your content so it can skip the mistakes.
5. Understand the difference between American and British English:
Check for errors by knowing your target audience whether your reader might want British vocabulary or American vocabulary.
6. Do Not fully depend on online tools to check for spelling and grammar mistakes:
There’s a difference between humans and machines while checking for mistakes in your assignment. A computer might not detect any mistake in to, too, or two because it’s not familiar with the context or background of your content.
7. Divide your assignment into many parts before proofreading.
It’s easier to check for mistakes in small sections rather than in long paragraphs.
8. Ask someone else to read your assignment:
It’s sometimes hard to check for your own mistakes as you know your assignment. Someone else might easily check your mistakes because they know nothing about your idea and have a new/ different perspective.
9. Read your assignment many times:
Reading your assignment more than once allows you to check the clarity and quality of your assignment.
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation:
What Should Be in Mind While Checking for Grammar Mistakes?
- Check for incomplete sentences and missing words.
- Check for sentence structures i.e.: the verb is after the subject.
- Use the same tense in your whole assignment.
- Check whether your subject agrees with the verb; a singular subject comes along with a singular verb.
What Should in Mind While Checking for Spelling Mistakes?
It’s better to check for spelling mistakes without using any online tool. a computer might not correct if you’ve written from instead of form. A computer doesn’t know anything about your context.
What should be in mind while checking for punctuation mistakes?
- Check for commas between separate words and phrases that are an addition to the main clause.
Check for full stops at every end of the sentence. - Check for question marks where needed.
Check for Semicolon to link two ideas.
IN CONCLUSION,
Proofreading is important since it helps us avoid mistakes in writing that may confuse readers. We’re all human and we all make mistakes. But, we definitely don’t want someone we’re trying to impress to get the wrong impression because of a silly spelling or grammar mistake.
Although proofreading comes last in the writing process, it’s an important step that shouldn’t be ignored. It is responsible for making sure our writing is excellent and free of errors.
Remember that proofreading is not all about checking grammar, punctuation or spelling mistakes.
- It also includes improving the tone of your sentences. So that you can read your assignment in a flow and simple to understand.
- It makes sure your sentences are understandable by checking if they are too long; Try to mix it up with short and long sentences.
- It also includes looking for any parts that seem weird, repeated ideas, and words or phrases that are not needed or unrelated.
