Try using a different color for each kind of error, such as blue for spelling errors or green for punctuation.

Try to keep the editing and proofreading processes separate. When you are editing an early draft, you don’t want to be bothered with thinking about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you’re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

24 Editing Your Draft for Standard Grammar and Mechanics

If you have been incorporating each set of revisions as Tuyet has, you have produced multiple drafts of your writing. So far, all your changes have been content changes. Perhaps with the help of peer feedback, you have made sure that you sufficiently supported your ideas. You have checked for problems with unity and coherence. You

have examined your essay for word choice, revising to cut unnecessary words and to replace weak wording with specific and appropriate wording.

The next step after revising the content is editing. When you edit, you examine the surface features of your text. You examine your spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation. You also make sure you use the proper format when creating your finished assignment.

Editing often takes time. Budgeting time into the writing process allows you to complete additional edits after revising. Editing and proofreading your writing helps you create a finished work that represents your best efforts. Here are a few more tips to remember about your readers:

• Readers do not notice correct spelling, but they do notice misspellings.
• Readers look past your sentences to get to your ideas—unless the sentences are awkward, poorly constructed, and frustrating to read.
• Readers notice when every sentence has the same rhythm as every other sentence, with no variety.
• Readers do not cheer when you use there, their, and they’re correctly, but they notice when you do not.
• Readers will notice the care with which you handled your assignment and your attention to detail in the delivery of an error-free document.

The next chapters of this book offer a useful review of word choice, usage, grammar, and mechanics. Use them to help you eliminate major errors in your writing and refine your understanding of the conventions of language. Do not hesitate to ask for help, too, from peer tutors in your academic department or in the college’s writing lab.

In the meantime, use the checklist on the next page to help you edit your writing.

Checklist

Be careful about relying too much on spelling checkers and grammar checkers. A spelling checker cannot recognize that you meant to write principle but wrote principal instead. A grammar checker often queries constructions that are perfectly correct. The program does not understand your meaning; it makes its check against a general set of formulas that might not apply in each instance. If you use a grammar checker, accept the suggestions that make sense, but consider why the suggestions came up.

Proofreading requires patience; it is very easy to read past a mistake. Set your paper aside for at least a few hours, if not a day or more, so your mind will rest. Some professional proofreaders read a text backward so they can concentrate on spelling and punctuation. Another helpful technique is to slowly read a paper aloud, paying attention to every word, letter, and punctuation mark.

If you need additional proofreading help, ask a reliable friend, a classmate, or a peer tutor to make a final pass on your paper to look for anything you missed.

Remember to use proper format when creating your finished assignment. For most academic papers, the appropriate format would be to use 1” margins, “Times New Roman” font in 12 point, and double spaced. It is good to get in the habit of typing all papers that way which will make it easier when you are doing much longer research papers.

Sometimes an instructor, a department, or a college will require students to follow specific instructions on titles, margins, page numbers, or the location of the writer’s name. These requirements may be more detailed and rigid for research projects and term papers, which often observe the American Psychological Association (APA) or Modern Language Association (MLA) style guides, especially when citations of sources are included.

To ensure the format is correct and follows any specific instructions, make a final check before you submit an assignment.

Apostrophes

These requirements may be more detailed and rigid for research projects and term papers, which often observe the American Psychological Association APA or Modern Language Association MLA style guides, especially when citations of sources are included. If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

Circle any words whose spelling you need to check. Look these up in a dictionary and write each word correctly on your paper.

Resources:

https://writeshop.com/proofreading-mechanics-homeschool-teens/
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/collegeeslwritermills/chapter/editing-your-draft-for-standard-grammar-and-mechanics/
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/
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