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I am an experienced academic passionate about inspiring individuals to aim high. I have assisted multiple students and early career academics to achieve their goals.
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I am an experienced academic passionate about inspiring individuals to aim high. I have assisted multiple students and early career academics to achieve their goals.
Don’t underestimate the importance of proof-reading your work before submission! I have lost count of the times I have written things like, “proof-read your work more carefully prior to submission,” in student assessment feedback. You can do a great job of drafting and editing your assignment, but if you don’t properly proof-read your work for errors then you will lose marks.
Proof-reading is doing the final checks to ensure your assignment is error-free. This is mainly about correcting spelling, punctuation and grammar (sometimes referred to as SPaG) but may also include things like refining the length of your sentences or paragraphs, ensuring headings and citations are accurately presented and everything to do with the presentation looks as polished and professional as possible. Your marker will expect you to have thoroughly proof-read your work before submission so they may well mark you down if your submission appears rushed and contains errors that could have been easily removed. Proof-reading should only begin once the final full draft of the assignment has been completed (see my previous blogs about step 5 drafting and step 6 editing). Whilst drafting is about ensuring all the content is included in the assignment, and editing is about improving, refining, and reorganizing, proof-reading is about finding and removing errors and maximizing clarity in the text. Many students simply proof-read their work as they go, but it is important to realize there will still be errors that are not picked up without allowing the time for proof-reading the full final draft prior to submission.
There are six important things to remember when proof-reading:
Proof-reading takes time. There are no shortcuts (or I would have found them). If you want the final submission of your assignment to be free from errors and as clear to read as possible, then you must take the time to go through it carefully. The length of time it takes depends on the word count; the longer the assignment the more time you should spend proof-reading.
To ensure each of your sentences are as coherent as possible it is important to read your work aloud to yourself and even to a critical friend. Ask yourself and them, “how does that sound?” Or “Does that make sense?” It may be that it looks fine written down, but when you read it aloud it may be grammatically incorrect or too verbose.
The reason you should ensure you only begin proof-reading when you have your final draft completed is because this last step of the writing process should not involve any substantial changes to things like content and structure. These should have all been addressed in the drafting and editing stages. The primary focus of proof-reading is finding and removing errors in the text but improving the flow of every sentence is also important. This is achieved through things like adding or removing words, re-phrasing things within sentences, adding/removing punctuation and lengthening or shortening sentences or paragraphs. The goal is for your marker not to find any errors and for them to be able to understand your sentences the first time they read them, rather than having to re-read them.
Ask a critical friend to read your work to help you spot errors and to maximize clarity. Make sure your critical friend is an honest person who you trust has your best interests at heart. They don’t necessarily have to be subject experts as they are only looking for errors and aiming to maximize clarity. In addition, give them time to read your work rather than rushing them.
If your assignment has any preliminary sections such as contents page, list of figures/tables, abstract, etc., then make sure you check these for errors and clarity too. It’s also important to thoroughly check any end matter, such as references and appendices, if applicable.
Make sure you make the most of the time you have by working right up to the day the assignment is due for submission. Ideally, you should aim to submit your work early on the day of submission rather than leaving it until the very last minute though!
Well done on completing this final step of the 7-step writing process. If you have followed all the steps, then you are going to produce great assignments! If you have missed or want to remind yourself about any of the other steps in the process, then just go to the resources section of Gibbons Academic. You will also find my other blogs containing hints and tips on all things academic there.
Get help from Gibbons Academic with your academic writing NOW by booking an online session or sending your draft work for review and detailed written or verbal feedback with suggestions for improvement from an expert.