-
- Don’t attempt to edit or proofread as soon as you’re done writing. Give yourself some time away from your work so it’s not as familiar. This involves advanced planning! If you can set it aside for a day or two, that’s great. If all you have is 20 minutes, let that be enough. Approaching your writing with fresh eyes will help you catch everything you need to catch during the editing process.
-
- Having a list of what to look for will also help guide your proofreading time. Your rubric or a general editing checklist will be helpful.
-
- Try different ways of proofreading. Some people work well reading straight off the computer screen. Others find it’s easier to print the paper out and use a pen.
-
- Work in a quiet place! Editing or proofreading in front of the TV, while working out, or trying to socialize with a friend will definitely make it difficult to catch everything.
-
- Don’t try to do it all at once. When you feel your brain drifting, take a break.
-
- Go slowly. Writing mistakes are often the result of rushing. Especially if you haven’t had a break from your writing, your brain can read what you know you meant to write instead of what you actually wrote. Give your eyes time to spot the errors.
-
- Reading aloud can help you notice omitted words, run-on sentences, organizational issues, missing transitions, etc.
-
- Look for common mistakes we’ve tried to combat throughout this course. There is a list of commonly mixed-up words in Lesson 1. We’ve gone over the fact that not all words that end in s need an apostrophe. Remember about subject/verb agreement and parallelism. Looking for errors in all of these common areas will help you find problem spots.
-
- Check for other common errors. Sentence fragments, dangling modifiers, unclear pronouns, and omitted or extra commas are all things that are common errors that we’ve learned about over the years through Easy Peasy Language Arts.