Strategies to Help Identify Errors while Proofreading

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Strategies to Help Identify Errors while
Proofreading

• Presented By Min Q Kim

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Slide Title

• Introduction
• Before You Proofread
• Strategies to Help Identify Errors
• Individualize the Act of Proofreading
• Contact Us

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Proofreading 

• Proofreading is the act of searching for errors
  before you hand in the your final research paper.
• Errors can be both grammatical and typographical
  in nature, but also include identifying problems
  with the narrative flow of your paper i.e., the
  logical sequence of thoughts and ideas, problems
  with concise writing, and finding any word
  processing errors e.g., different font types,
  indented paragraphs, line spacing, uneven
  margins, etc..

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Before You Proofread

• Be sure you've revised the larger aspects of the
  text.
• Set your paper aside between writing and
  proofreading.
• Eliminate unnecessary words before looking for
  mistakes.
• Know what to look for.
• Review your list of references.

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Strategies to Help Identify Errors

• Work from a printout, not a computer screen.
  Besides sparing your eyes the strain of glaring
  at the computer, proofreading from a printout
  allows you to easily skip around to where errors
  might have been repeated throughout the paper
  e.g., misspelled name of a person.
• Read out loud. This is especially helpful for
  spotting run-on sentences, but you'll also hear
  other problems that you may not have identified
  while reading the text out loud. This will also
  helps you play the role of the reader, thereby,
  encouraging you to understand the paper as your
  audience might.

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Strategies to Help Identify Errors

• Use a ruler or blank sheet of paper to cover up
  the lines below the one you're reading. This
  technique keeps you from skipping over possible
  mistakes. This also helps you deliberately pace
  yourself as you read through your paper.
• Circle or highlight every punctuation mark in
  your paper. This forces you to pay attention to
  each mark you used and to question its purpose in
  each sentence or paragraph. This is a
  particularly helpful strategy if you tend to
  misuse or overuse a punctuation mark, such as a
  comma or semi-colon.

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Strategies to Help Identify Errors

• Use the search function of the computer to find
  mistakes. Using the search find feature of your
  word processor can help you identify common
  errors faster.
• If you tend to make many mistakes, check
  separately for each kind of error, moving from
  the most to the least important, and following
  whatever technique works best for you to identify
  that kind of mistake. 

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Strategies to Help Identify Errors

• End with using a computer spell checker or
  reading backwards word by word. Remember that a
  spell checker won't catch mistakes with homonyms
  e.g., "they're," "their," "there" or certain
  typos like "he" when you meant to write "the".
• Leave yourself enough time. Since many errors are
  made and overlooked by speeding through writing
  and proofreading, setting aside the time to
  carefully review your writing will help you catch
  errors you might otherwise miss. 

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Strategies to Help Identify Errors

• Ask a friend to read your paper. Offer to
  proofread a friend's paper if they will review
  yours. Having another set of eyes look over your
  writing will often spot errors that you would
  have otherwise missed.

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Individualize the Act of Proofreading

• Accept the fact that you likely won't be able to
  check for everything, so be introspective about
  what your typical problem areas are and look for
  each type of error individually. Here's how
• Think about what errors you typically make.
• Learn how to fix those errors
• Use specific strategies
• Where you proofread is important! 
• Proofread in several short blocks of time.

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Individualize the Act of Proofreading

• In general, verb tense should be in the following
  format, although variations can occur within the
  text depending on the narrative style of your
  paper.
• Abstract--past tense the summary description of
  what I did
• Introduction--present tense I am describing the
  study to you now
• Literature Review--past tense the studies I
  reviewed have already been written

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Individualize the Act of Proofreading

• Methodology--past tense the way I gathered and
  synthesized data has already happened
• Results--past tense the findings have already
  been discovered
• Discussion--present tense I am talking to you
  now about how I interpreted the findings
• Conclusion--present tense I am summarizing the
  study for you now

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Contact Us

• Ediket Inc.
• Address 4023 Kennett Pike PMB 2019,
• Wilmington DE 19807
• Phone Number 888-622-3807
• Email contact_at_ediket.com
• Website https//ediket.com
• Resource https//goo.gl/oppYcq

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Thank You