Editing and Proofreading

Proofreading strategies

Get to grips with grammar

Grammar and spelling checkers can speed up the process of spotting incorrect grammar or word use.  You may need to ensure that UK English is set as the proofing language. If you don't understand a suggestion from the grammar checker, try to improve your understanding - see for example Grammar and punctuation (bris.ac.uk) and Subject-verb agreement (video) | Khan Academy.  Also, don't trust the technology too much: a spell-checker might not identify a correctly spelt word used in the wrong context.  That is why it is important to check the work yourself as well.  

Use a logical workflow

It's easy to get distracted when proofreading a live document, and if you start editing you may lose track of where you are in the proofreading process.  Whilst trivial errors can be corrected as you see them, for trickier wording that needs re-phrasing, it's better to simply mark those issues to return to later. It's helpful to sweep through the document several times using your checklist and focusing on particular types of errors on each read-through. Using a different coloured highlighter can help you to identify the type of problem that you need to address.

Search systematically

You can search for errors systematically by eye, or using technology. For example, to check you have positioned and formatted citations correctly, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F to open the search box, and then search for all brackets in your work. Of course, as this approach won't find citations that are incorrectly missing their brackets or find all the issues in your work, this is why you also need to search by eye, or hear your work read aloud.

Reading aloud

Whereas silent reading often leads to skimming or speed reading rather than carefully analysing what you have written. The act of reading aloud enhances focus and concentration and can significantly improve the quality of your work.  You can also use technology to read your work back to you to gauge the flow and coherence of your writing. You can then often detect when something doesn’t sound right and catch issues with sentence structure, grammar and pacing that you may have overlooked when reading silently.

Proofreading tools

Sheffield Hallam students can use several tools to identify errors and learn how to improve your writing:

• Check grammar, spelling, and stylistic issues in Microsoft Word
• Hear your work read aloud with Microsoft apps, (and book a session)
• Identify plagiarism and find missing references and grammar mistakes using Turnitin Draft Coach 

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