Editing and proofreading

Writing is a craft and editing and proofreading are skills that help you improve your writing. Recognise that the first draft is simply that - it is not a finished product, it is just one step in the process to finishing a piece of work.

Proofreading is the systematic checking and correction of written work that typically includes looking for spelling and grammatical errors. This tends to happen at the end of the writing process at last draft stage when you are happy with your structure, argument and general content. Editing is an ongoing process that is about improving the overall standard of your work. This could include structure and argument as well as improving language and expression. Writers tend to do a mix of both as they review their work though we do advise doing a last proofread to check for surface errors before you submit.

Most hints and tips for proofreading are about making your brain see the work afresh. These are our top tips:

  • Time: try and build in time for editing your work when you plan your time at the beginning of the assignment. Leave a gap of a couple of days at the end of any writing stage and when you return to your writing you will see it with fresh eyes and see where you can make improvements.

  • Read over your work with a purpose. For example, I write very long sentences and when I am editing my work I look for sentences longer than three lines and check to see if they make sense or should they be broken up into shorter ones. On another read through I will check for something else e.g. tense or correct use of critical signposting words.

  • Try the 'so what?' test on your paragraphs. See the 'Conclusion' page for more information on this. This test will help check if you have good 'stepping stone' links or criticality in your paragraphs.

  • Read your work aloud. You are more likely to notice errors than if you just read through your work quickly.

  • If you have read aloud software, use this.

  • Read from the last word of a paragraph backwards to the first. This is good for spotting spelling errors.

  • Sometimes changing the font colour or text size can help. As your work looks different you are more likely to read for sense than skim reading what you thought you'd written.

For fun

When reading our brain scans the information and does not always pick up fine detail. What we perceive to be correct is not always the reality. This is often why we find it difficult to proofread our own work correctly. Can you read the following?

it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae...

Despite the mixed up letters, the shape of the word will help us to recognise the words visually. Were you correct?:

it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letters be at the right place

(Rawlinson, G. E. (1976) The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.)