Friday, May 31, 2013

Doing Academic Proofreading In A Few Steps

By Rena Hudson


Academic proofreading is not just about editing the spelling and grammar of a paper as it is crucial for these kinds of written works to be as near to perfect as possible. That is why proofreaders are expected to be able to go through a process in which they edit these works. Of course there are a lot of things to look at and take note of when doing this kind of activity.

Now the first step in this process would be to look at the paper as a whole so that it would be possible to spot for mistakes in the formatting and spacing. Format is very important because the way the paper is presented will show how much effort the writer made into writing that particular piece of work. So as a proofreader, it is important to be able to fix the formatting too.

Most proofreaders would skip this step and go directly to editing the paper and look for mistakes in details right away. Now take note that doing this will just confuse the proofreader because he will have absolutely no idea what he is editing and therefore will have a hard time spotting for mistakes. Before editing the paper, it is important to first read through the text.

So after going through these things, now would be the time to check the paper if there are any mistakes in content and formatting. So start with the first sentence and check if the spelling, word usage, and grammar are all correct. If there are mistakes, then use special indications and markings that will help the writer be able to know where he made mistakes and errors.

Another thing proofreaders should watch out for would be sentences that have absolutely nothing to do with the written work. Sometimes without realizing, writers put some extra phrases or sentences that do not really need to be there. It is the job of the proofreader to spot these things and be able to correct or remove them.

While one is doing this, then he must also pay attention to the formatting of the paper as well. If there should be extra indentations or spaces, the proofreaders should put an indication on where the mistakes are. The font should also be consistent without any mistakes in size, color, and font family.

The last thing to look at would be the bibliography, footnotes, and the presentation of sources. Of course academic works will need a list of sources that will be written in a separate part of the piece of work where people can use as references. It is important that one know which format to use like MLA or APA and one must also be able to know how to use them properly.

So basically, those are what proofreaders will do when they are editing works like these. Take note that academic proofreading is a step by step process and no step should be skipped. If one wants to properly proofread a paper, he must go through all the motions.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment