Chapter 6: Editing and proofreading

Chapter 6: Editing and proofreading

This chapter is about editing and proof reading your revised draft. Look at your overall style, read writing aloud, 3 key stylistic reminders: be purposeful, be clear, and be sincere, and examine your sentences. Consider your word choice; avoid redundancy, watch for repetition, look for general nouns, verbs, and modifiers, avoid highly technical terms, and use fair language.

Combine short, simplistic sentences with several basic ideas to make a longer more detailed sentence. Expand sentences by using cumulative sentences and expanding with details. Check for sentence style. Avoid sentence problems that are short, choppy, flat, predictable, incorrect, unclear, unacceptable, and unnatural. Check that sentence variety in the beginnings, lengths, and types. Check sentence structure; opening, lengths, kinds, arrangements, and positive repetition. Look at parallel structure; words, phrases, or cause in a series, use correlative conjunction, place a modifier correctly, and use contrasting details. Avoid weak constructions; nominal constructions, expletives, and negative constructions.

When proofreading your writing review punctuations; commas, apostrophes, question marks, and capital letters. Look at usage and grammar errors; commonly mixed words, verb use, and pronoun/ antecedent agreement problems. Look for spelling errors; use spell checker, check spelling you are unsure of, and consult handbook. Look at form and presentation; note the title, quoted or cited material, and look over finished writing.

Avoid imprecise, misleading and bias words. Substitute specific words; specific nouns and vivid verbs. Replace jargon and clichés; use understandable language, fresh and original writing and purpose and voice. Change biased words; words that referring to ethnicity, age, disabilities, conditions, gender, and occupational issuses.