Proofreading and Editing an Essay

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After you have written your essay you need to check it thoroughly. Poor spelling and grammar will mar your essay.

Proofreading your article means checking it for spelling or grammatical errors. Pay particular attention to words that are often spell incorrectly, for example ‘their’ instead of ‘there’. Do not overuse punctuation, and remember that its primary purpose is to make the text as unambiguous as possible. Editing is the process of changing your article so that it is in an acceptable form to be submitted or published. During this process you need to examine your article carefully. Ask yourself questions such as, "Does it make sense or have you used too much jargon?" There are a number of online guides to proofreading and editing that will help you in this task.

There are many ways that you can proofread your article. Software programs such as Microsoft Word have built in spelling and grammar checkers and you should use these on your finished article. However, don’t rely on them as they do not pick up all mistakes. If you can, it is a good idea to swap your essay with someone else as sometimes you will miss mistakes when checking your own work. You can use online spell checkers, punctuation checkers and grammar checkers. There are also services online that offer to have your essay proofread and edited by professional academics. They will correct your essay and suggest improvements. Last but not least there are English writing software packages that will check spelling, grammar and punctuation as well as help you edit your essay.