Editing and Proofreading

1. Editing and Proofreading ENGLISH 485A

2. Do a quick write about one of the two pictures presented here. Do not worry about punctuation, spelling or format. Just put your ideas on paper as quickly as they come to you. • Crying • Laughter

3. Because of Winn Dixie Because of Winn Dixie Rough Drafts

4. Editing • Check your content: have you done all the assignment requires; have you backed up all your claims with evidence • Check your introduction/conclusion: are they appropriate and does your intro contain a clear thesis statement • Check body paragraphs: do each of your paragraphs relate to thesis statement, do your paragraphs follow a logical sequence and do your paragraphs have clear transitions

5. Check for clarity: are there any terms that need to be defined and is the meaning of each sentence clear

6. Proofreading • Check for spelling errors • Read paper out loud to check for any left-out or double words • Check for sentence fragments: look for subject, verb and independent clauses • Check for run-on sentences: look for more than one independent clause in a sentence, and if there is more than one, make sure there is appropriate punctuation. You might want to divide the clauses into two sentences.

7. Check for comma splices: look for sentences with two independent clauses, and if there are two independent clauses, make sure proper conjunctions are supplied. • Check subject/verb agreement • Check for parallelism: look for series of items, and when you see them, make sure they are in parallel form

8. Check for pronoun reference agreement • Check for apostrophes

9. Quiz • Proofreading Quiz • Now, try proofreading in real time. Take out your quick writes and proofread them, looking for the mistakes we covered.