Writing is a process; proofreading and revision are vital aspects of that process. We do not proofread and revise if we have time; we set aside time to do so. When we do, we invariably find ways to improve our work significantly. That is why many writing-intensive courses require multiple drafts of a paper.

A great way to tell if our writing flows smoothly is to read it aloud. If a phrase sounds odd to us or we find ourselves stumbling over a sentence, then revision is in order. Further, following the advice of the Purdue Online Writing Lab https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/, we may find it helpful to read our work aloud a friend and solicit feedback and/or listen to a friend read our work.

If, when reading our essay aloud, we find that our prose seems a bit “flabby” or “meanders”  in some places, The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center provides a helpful corrective: “How to Write Clear, Concise, and Direct Sentences”  http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Clear,_Concise,_and_Direct_Sentences.pdf

If we notice places in our essay where we seem to be moving too quickly and there are abrupt shifts, then we need to provide some transitions to help our reader follow the flow of our argument.  Here the University of Virginia Writing Center’s “Transitions” is a helpful resource, https://www.uvu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/transitions.pdf

A great way to tell if our writing flows smoothly is to read it aloud. If a phrase sounds odd to us or we find ourselves stumbling over a sentence, then revision is in order. Further, following the advice of the Purdue Online Writing Lab https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/, we may find it helpful to read our work aloud a friend and solicit feedback and/or listen to a friend read our work.

If, when reading our essay aloud, we find that our prose seems a bit “flabby” or “meanders”  in some places, The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center provides a helpful corrective: “How to Write Clear, Concise, and Direct Sentences”  http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Clear,_Concise,_and_Direct_Sentences.pdf

If we notice places in our essay where we seem to be moving too quickly and there are abrupt shifts, then we need to provide some transitions to help our reader follow the flow of our argument.  Here the University of Virginia Writing Center’s “Transitions” is a helpful resource, https://www.uvu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/transitions.pdf

Here is a sentence from a well-known novel:

He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath.

http://www.victorianlondon.org/books/tale-02.htm

At 79 words and more than four lines, even with a semi colon break after the first 20 words, this sentence taxes the reader. We may forgive Charles Dickens long sentences like these in The Tale of Two Cities because literary styles change and Dickens is a great author. However, our readers will not forgive us if our sentences seem interminable.  Readers get lost in long sentences, sometimes because the writers themselves got lost. If we keep our sentences shorter than two lines, we will find it easier to order our thoughts and our readers will find it easier to follow our thinking.  As a rule of thumb, a sentence longer than two lines is too long.

Long paragraphs, like long sentences, can put off our readers.  If our essay has paragraphs that run more than a page or take up most of a page, one look at them may cause our readers, like the horses on Dickens’ hill, to call it quits. A shorter paragraph—perhaps five sentences—is more inviting and apt to be easier to understand.

We may find it hard to spot grammatical errors in our work if we do not already have a good grasp of the rules of grammar. Using our computer’s grammar check is a good place to start but we need to use it wisely and remember that such checks are not foolproof and that our goal is to understand and master the rules of grammar.

We can improve our knowledge of grammar and correct our work by using a checklist, a list of the most common grammatical mistakes and the ways to address them. A document form the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center, “Twelve Common Errors:  A Student Self-Editing Guide,” is a superb resource: https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/PDF/twelve_common_errors_uwmadison_writingcenter_rev_sept2012.pdf

The University of Wisconsin Colleges’ list of 11 word-choice errors is helpful supplement: http://uwc.edu/students/academic-support/owl/word-choice-errors

We may find it hard to spot grammatical errors in our work if we do not already have a good grasp of the rules of grammar. Using our computer’s grammar check is a good place to start but we need to use it wisely and remember that such checks are not foolproof and that our goal is to understand and master the rules of grammar.

We can improve our knowledge of grammar and correct our work by using a checklist, a list of the most common grammatical mistakes and the ways to address them. A document form the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center, “Twelve Common Errors:  A Student Self-Editing Guide,” is a superb resource: https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/PDF/twelve_common_errors_uwmadison_writingcenter_rev_sept2012.pdf

The University of Wisconsin Colleges’ list of 11 word-choice errors is helpful supplement: http://uwc.edu/students/academic-support/owl/word-choice-errors

Good intentions are not always good enough for avoiding plagiarism. Even if we mean well, we may engage in plagiarism, from carelessness or misunderstanding.  Careless plagiarism sometimes occurs if, while writing our paper, we include information we have cut and pasted from an internet source—using it as “placeholder,” intending to come back later and paraphrase it.  The best way to avoid this is to keep all material we have cut and pasted from the internet out of our draft in the first place and never cut and paste material from the internet—for our notes for example—without also including the source link with it.

Unintentional plagiarism may occur if our good-faith effort to paraphrase source material falls short.  It is important to recognize that changing a word or two, deleting a phrase, or combining several phrases from different parts of a work is not a successful paraphrase for we are still relying primarily on someone else’s wording. (For guidance on how to paraphrase and the difference between successful and unsuccessful paraphrases, the material in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s “The Writer’s Handbook” is very helpful http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QuotingSources.html ) We also need to keep in mind that when we have adequately paraphrased a source, we still need to credit the author for their original insights.

Documenting our sources in the proper format (cf. “Acknowledging Sources” above) can be tricky. It is always wise to make sure that we are using the citation style assigned by the professor and that we have applied it correctly.

Many schools have writing labs that offer assistance with proofreading and revision.  Some labs provide these services via email and Skype, and so distance and travel time need not be barriers. Taking the time to have the writing-lab staff review our work, can result in substantially improved revision.

Even if personal feedback from a writing lab is not an option, we can nonetheless benefit from the excellent, open-educational resources Online Writing Labs (“OWLs”) provide.  These include:

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center’s “The Writer’s Handbook,” http://www.writing.wisc.edu/Handbook

Utah Valley’s Writing Center’s Handouts:  https://www.uvu.edu/writingcenter/handouts/index.html

The Purdue University Online Writing Lab’s “General Writing Resources,”    https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/

Writing is personal; everyone’s writing has strengths and areas needing improvement. If we keep a record of our successes, then we have a place to turn when we feel discouraged and need a boost. It is a fact that we remember negative feedback more than positive and so it is important to capture the positive comments we receive and keep them on our radar screen.  Focusing only on areas in need of improvement can be demoralizing and leave us with a distorted view of our writing. If we work very hard on a paper, receive some negative comments and a grade of 75%, we are apt to forget that our score of 75% indicates that the vast majority of our work was spot-on. Of course, we do want to learn from our mistakes, but we also need to take care less we obsess over them to the point that we forget about our strengths.

One way to keep up our morale and improve our writing is to compile a summary of feedback on all of our writing projects in a single place.  In the example below, the title of the summary file is “Better to Best” and consists of two sections, “Encouraging Comments” and “Getting Better.”  Although most of the information we capture will come directly from professor feedback on our work, it is also helpful to include some of our own notes. In this regard, see “reminder” under the essay on “Aristotle’s Four Cases” in the “Encouraging Feedback” section below. Note as well the links included in the “Better to Best” section.  Including them makes it easy for us to go directly to the writing points we wish to review and so more likely that we will take the time to do so.