Dr. Athanasiou-Krikelis: Proofreading your paper

Proofreading your work can be difficult but here are some strategies to make the process easier. 

• Set aside enough time to read your paper, that means a day or two, or more after you are finished to read your work and check for spelling, and other common errors. 
• Read your work out loud
• Have a friend read your paper after you have corrected any grammar errors and read your work out loud- a new reader is able to check for errors you may have overlooked. 
• Make an appointment with a librarian or visit the writing center if you have any other concerns. 

• Don't rely solely on your word processor to check spelling errors- It will not catch everything!  
• Take special care of homonyms like your/you're, to/too/two, and there/their/they're, as spell check will not recognize these as errors.
• Read your paper carefully and look for word spelling, as well as, left out and double words.  

Subject/Verb agreement

• Find the subject of each sentence.
• Find the verb that goes with the subject.
• The subject and verb should match in number, meaning that if the subject is plural, the verb should be as well.
• An easy way to do this is to underline all subjects. Then, circle or highlight the verbs one at a time and see if they match.

* Adapted d from Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab. 

Check these resources out! 

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• Guide to Grammar and Writing 
•  Grammar and usage column, NYTimes 
• Lingua Franca column, Chronicle of Higher education