Proofreading and Taking a Second Look

Proofreading is one of the most important steps to writing the best essay you can. If you make silly mistakes or your ideas are not consistent all the way through your paper, your writing (and your grade) will suffer. You can also lose credibility as a writer or as a source of information. In this post, I will try to help you understand why proofreading is important and where you can go to get extra help with it.

Proofreading is a must

When you want to make the best of your work, you will have to take a second, a third, a tenth look at what you have written. Simply writing it out and turning it in will not get you the grade you want let alone the quality of work that you are capable of.

Re-reading what you write gives you the chance to decide if you are using the language that you want to in order to say what is needed on your subject. If you are using words with the wrong connotations or denotations, an additional read through can help you determine which parts are working and which are not. 

Get a second opinion

If possible, send your paper to another person for an additional look or two. A second set of eyes is always helpful when you want to know that you are really getting your point across or to see if you have made any grammar or punctuation errors that you simply passed over in your own edits and proofreads.

If you do not have a proofreader handy to take a look at your work, there are always other options; many of them are free or low in cost. These include, but are not limited to, school writing centers and online essay checkers.

Writing Centers

Most if not all universities provide a writing help center in which students can take their work and have it looked at by someone who knows what they are talking about. You can take your work to these individuals and they can provide feedback on the content of your paper. They will not provide strict proofreading help, but they can show you some strategies that are useful.

A related option is visiting the writing center's website. Sometimes they provide some basic information about what you can look at while proofreading or editing your own work. An example of this can be found on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Writing Center website. They provide various handouts including one that relates directly to proofreading and editing.

I like the handout from UNC's Writing Center because it offers lists of specific things to look at such as:

• content
• overall structure
• structure within paragraphs
• clarity
• style
• citations

Plus they go into detail about the whys of proofreading--which are many!!

Online Essay Checkers

Several online platforms allow you to submit your work; someone will take a look at it and send it back to you with comments and suggestions. 

There are also downloadable essay checkers, such as Grammarly, that let you enter your paper then provide feedback almost instantly. Of course, there are other options that will charge you money, but they might offer better feedback.

Closing remarks

My overall point is that you have to take multiple looks at your paper before it will be remotely ready for you to turn in. If you do not care about the outcome, I guess it does not really matter, but then you would not be reading this post, right?

To get the best out of your paper, one of the most important parts will be proofreading. If you put the time and effort in to your writing and your editing, you will be hard pressed to do badly.