Before you handed in your term paper, did you sit down and proofread carefully? You may be tired, and tired of the paper, but no doubt there is a chunk of marks set aside for proofreading and editing your paper.
Even if there are no points allotted for this, who wants to annoy an instructor already overwhelmed with stacks of papers to mark at this time of year?
Take the time to check over your paper for the little errors that can add up to a big loss of marks. Here are some things to look for:
Spelling:
It takes no effort at all to run a spell-check on your paper. Misspelled words are frustrating to wade through, and give a really sloppy appearance to an otherwise well-written paper. While your spell-check program is running, enter the names of your instructors, who sigh at seeing the many variations of their names on student papers. By the way, if you think spell checking is boring, ask anyone over 30 how they wrote their papers; you'll get a long speech about the old days and typewritten papers.
Typos:
Spell-checkers won't catch every mistake, since a misplaced "their" instead of "they're" or "there" will be considered correct by your non-thinking computer. If you know you're lousy at the keyboard, take time to change the "tows" to "twos," and so on. Look for incorrect capitalization, too.
Punctuation:
Brush up on your commas and semi-colons, and use them to your advantage. They are considered the toughies of English punctuation, and students sometimes craft "sophisticated" sentences with them.
Conversely, run-on and incomplete sentences are frustrating, and slow down the reader's progress through the paper if he/she has to go back and re-read for clarity.
Bibliographies require standard formats, punctuation included, so mind the details; follow the referencing formula your instructor has asked you to use, and don't just guess if you're not sure whether to put a comma or period after the date of publication. (In another column we'll get into the tricky business of referencing and citation.)
Grammar:
Like spell-checkers, the grammar checkers that come with many word processors don't catch everything. Indeed, these programs aren't perfect, and it's better to use your head (or a friend's head) to double-check yourself. Common errors involve run-on sentences and sentence fragments, and subject-verb agreement.
Even if there are no points allotted for this, who wants to annoy an instructor already overwhelmed with stacks of papers to mark at this time of year?
Take the time to check over your paper for the little errors that can add up to a big loss of marks. Here are some things to look for:
Spelling:
It takes no effort at all to run a spell-check on your paper. Misspelled words are frustrating to wade through, and give a really sloppy appearance to an otherwise well-written paper. While your spell-check program is running, enter the names of your instructors, who sigh at seeing the many variations of their names on student papers. By the way, if you think spell checking is boring, ask anyone over 30 how they wrote their papers; you'll get a long speech about the old days and typewritten papers.
Typos:
Spell-checkers won't catch every mistake, since a misplaced "their" instead of "they're" or "there" will be considered correct by your non-thinking computer. If you know you're lousy at the keyboard, take time to change the "tows" to "twos," and so on. Look for incorrect capitalization, too.
Punctuation:
Brush up on your commas and semi-colons, and use them to your advantage. They are considered the toughies of English punctuation, and students sometimes craft "sophisticated" sentences with them.
Conversely, run-on and incomplete sentences are frustrating, and slow down the reader's progress through the paper if he/she has to go back and re-read for clarity.
Bibliographies require standard formats, punctuation included, so mind the details; follow the referencing formula your instructor has asked you to use, and don't just guess if you're not sure whether to put a comma or period after the date of publication. (In another column we'll get into the tricky business of referencing and citation.)
Grammar:
Like spell-checkers, the grammar checkers that come with many word processors don't catch everything. Indeed, these programs aren't perfect, and it's better to use your head (or a friend's head) to double-check yourself. Common errors involve run-on sentences and sentence fragments, and subject-verb agreement.
Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Proofreading Term Papers is Important in Academic Writing is owned by . Permission to republish Proofreading Term Papers is Important in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
