Midterms are coming up. With that brings mid-semester term papers. Here are some tips for you to quickly edit your papers without having to get someone else to read them for mistakes:
1. Eliminate Contractions
Sometimes when writing, we forget and write words like “can’t” or “wasn’t” when his is considered improper. Remove these and it will also help to boost your word count.
2. Read Aloud
By reading out loud, you catch mistakes that your brain glosses over. Sometimes you can drop words or use the wrong word when typing quickly, so using this technique should help to fix these errors.
3. Eliminate Repetitions
It isn’t necessary, but it can help your paper sound better if you don’t use the same word twice in the same sentence. Also, finding other ways of saying something improves your paper so you aren’t repeating the same phrase over and over.
4. Back-to-Front Reading
Sometimes we get caught up in the details that we miss simple mistakes. Reading the end paragraph first and then reading those paragraphs that came before in reverse order can help you to see the sentence structures for what they are instead of the information as a whole. Also, doing corrections a day or two later with fresh eyes really makes the mistakes glaring in your work.
5. Check Citations
Recheck your citations. Everyone hates losing two points for missing something stupid like a comma or period. Go back to your style guides and double check that everything’s in order. Citationmachine.net is an excellent resource for creating these citations for you.
Hopefully these tips will help save you some heartache later when you lose points on silly mistakes. Happy writing!