Has your professor or TA ever mentioned that you should proofread your papers better? Or have you ever lost points for the writing mechanics section of the grading rubric? If your answer is “yes” to these, you should probably work on your editing and proofreading skills. Don’t worry—it’s not that difficult and really rewarding. So here are five things that no pro proofreader ever neglects.
#1 Make the Most of a Good Grammar Checker
No matter how attentive you are, you can’t possibly catch every minor mistake in your paper without a decent grammar checker. Even professional writers working at an essay writing service Essay Hub rely on typing assistance tools and grammar checkers. So if you have yet to try one, consider one of these:
- Grammarly’s the best option in the market. It has it all, including style suggestions and a plagiarism checker. Even the free version is okay, but do consider getting a premium account. It’s worth it, and a user satisfaction rate of 96% proves this.
- ProWritingAid is a not bad and cheaper alternative to Grammarly, capable of catching any mistakes and stylistic issues. Also, just like Grammarly, ProWritingAid has an in-built writing coach, so paying for it is a wise investment.
- Grammar Slammer. Grammar Slammer can’t really compare to Grammar or even ProWritingAid. But it’s better than nothing. Its main advantage is the price, which is very student budget-friendly.
#2 Use Hemingway Editor if Necessary
If you’re writing an essay or a research paper and already using a typing assistant akin to Grammarly, you don’t really need Hemingway Editor. It’s more suited for online content and staff akin to emails, where it’s essential to be concise and clear. So if you have a communication class where you have to write tons of memos, Hemingway Editor should become your best friend.
The goal of Hemingway Editor is to simplify writing. It helps the writer catch long sentences that should be broken into shorter ones. It’s also great for eliminating complicated words that not everyone knows. And it’s free, so there’s really no reason not to use Hemingway Editor. Your future correspondents (or readers of your blog) will be grateful.
#3 Read Your Paper Out Loud
The next step that’ll help you perfect your paper is reading it out loud. Most students skip it because they think that it’s possible to catch everything with their eyes alone. But that’s not true. Some writing issues, for example, repetitions, are way easier to notice when you’re reading the paper out loud instead of simply reading it silently time and time again.
By the way, don’t just use this method when you’re writing a speech. Even an essay or research paper will benefit from such a test. As the writer, you can’t really see your writing objectively. Reading it out loud is your chance to look at your paper as an unbiased outsider and detect everything that’s wrong with it. Please try this at least once—and you’ll be surprised.
#4 Let it Rest Before the Final Check
It’s not a secret that a lot of students don’t even begin their papers until a couple of hours before the deadline. But the results of such an approach are rarely good. When you have too little time to write a decent paper, it might be a better idea to check essay writing services reviews on EssayReviews.com and get professional help. Otherwise, you’ll likely submit a lousy, poorly proofread paper.
The thing is, you don’t just need time to research and write a paper. You also need to be able to let it be for at least a night before your proofread and edit it for the last time. When you’re reading the same text over and over again, at some point, you can no longer really see it. That’s why it’s important to leave yourself at least one extra day to take a pause before the final polishing.
#5 Have Someone Else Read Your Paper
Finally, an outsider can catch something in your paper that you can’t. This isn’t just about grammar mistakes or repetitions—Grammarly and other proofreading tools are great for that. A person reading your paper can see problems in your logical reasoning or weird transitions that make sense only to you. If this happens, trust their judgment. You’re the one who is biased here.
An Afterword
To polish your paper to perfection, you need to go through five important steps: a grammar checker, Hemingway Editor (optional), reading your paper out loud, leaving your paper be for a day, and having someone else read it. You can surely skip something on this list. But it will reflect on the quality of your final draft, so try not to. Don’t treat editing as an afterthought. It’s as essential as writing is.
