Punctuation: A Crash Course

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process: You check your work for common errors such as sentence fragments, typos, misspellings etc. 

Proofreading is important—and can be difficult—because your brain already knows what you want to say, so it's easy to gloss over little mistakes. Below are some handy tips!

• Read your essay backwards, sentence by sentence. Starting at the end and working backwards can help you find errors because your brain is less likely to fill in what you meant to say.
• Step away for a couple of days. Nothing helps you get fresh eyes like taking a break!
• Change your essay to a different font. Sometimes changing the font, spacing, and/or margins of the essay can help you see it anew. 
• Read your essay aloud. Reading aloud will help you find not only typos and misspellings, but also places where the sentence structure feels funky. If you stumble when you're reading a sentence out loud, chances are that the sentence can be reworded to flow more smoothly. 
• Have a speech-to-text program read your essay aloud. Use a program like Natural Reader. See if the computer makes mistakes. 
• Know yourself. If you know you tend to confuse effect and affect, devote a few minutes to catching that error. If you tend to write a lot of sentence fragments, read through the entire draft looking only for incomplete sentences. 
• Visit the SLC. When in doubt, make an appointment with the Student Learning Center (SLC). We can help!