Introduction

If you're like most of us, the experience described above has indeed happened to you. It's demoralizing to get back an essay or research paper with a lower grade than you expected and with a note from the teacher that says “Proofread!” However, unless you systematically proofread your writing—instead of never looking back over it or just quickly scanning it thirty seconds before it's due—chances are you will continue to be disappointed with the grades and comments on your papers. Although you probably won't find proofreading listed on The World's 10 Most Exciting and Fun Activities, be assured that checking your writing carefully will pay off in a variety of ways. Time spent proofreading is never wasted.

Many people use the terms proofreading and editing interchangeably, but we are going to differentiate between them. The titles of the first five lessons in Writing, Module 5, begin with the word “editing”; those lessons deal with checking a paper's content, structure, clarity, transitions, style, and troublesome grammar. You edit throughout the writing process to develop, connect, and organize your ideas in the best possible way.

The majority of proofreading, on the other hand, happens toward the end of the writing process, usually just before you hand in the final paper. Although you do some proofreading along the way, remember that sentences and paragraphs will change as you edit. The paper simply isn't finished until you've proofread it after the editing process. Yes, content is the most important element of a written piece, but if it is marred by surface errors, the quality of your writing and the coherence of your ideas suffer. In this lesson, we'll tackle proofreading for the three kinds of technical errors that can spoil otherwise good papers: poor spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

Before we get started, though, let’s be very clear about something: ALL writers, not just high school students, make mistakes. Think of authors whose works you like to read. Regardless of how many names come to mind, rest assured that all of them have had errors in their writing just like you. A major difference between them and you is that they have professional proofreaders and editors go over their work; you, however, don’t have that luxury, so proofreading is your responsibility. You can either (1) not check your writing for surface errors and hope for the best—obviously not a good idea—or (2) improve your proofreading skills and thus improve your papers. Since you're here, we assume you chose the second option.

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General Tips for Successful Proofreading

Although you want to be a better proofreader, you're probably thinking that you don't need to read these tips, aren't you? Well, if you're serious about finding and fixing your errors before your teacher does, you DO need to read them. The suggestions below are about proofreading in general, but in later sections of the lesson, we'll discuss specific proofreading techniques for specific types of errors. Experiment with them to determine which ones work best for you, and then use them to develop your own systematic strategy.

• Know which mistakes you repeat. Why continue, essay after essay, to make the same mistakes when it is within your power to eliminate most of them? Keep a list of your errors so you can target those mistakes you repeat. We’re talking about the errors you make because you really don't know the proper way to spell, capitalize, or punctuate a word or sentence. Armed with that list and a handbook, dictionary, or computer, you can begin to chip away at repeated errors by zeroing in on them and learning how to correct them.


• Wait awhile before proofreading a paper. If you check for errors immediately after you finish a writing assignment, you're likely to be thinking about what you meant to write, not necessarily what you actually did write. You may skip over mistakes unintentionally. Put the essay away, even if for only an hour, and come back to it when you've had time to clear your mind. You'll probably be able to spot errors more easily after you and your paper have had a vacation from each other.


• Allow yourself plenty of time. Proofreading is the final step of the writing process. Carefully check for errors and correct them without rushing.


• Use a hard copy. If you write your paper on a computer, print a copy to proofread instead of trying to check it while looking at the screen. You'll be amazed at how many more errors you'll catch that way.


• Change the format. An unfamiliar piece of writing is easier to proofread than the same old essay you've been working on and know by heart, so use the computer to trick your brain into thinking you're checking a different paper. Simply change how your paper looks by altering the kind of font, the size, color, or text spacing before you print a copy to proofread.


• Proofread in a quiet place. Yes, we realize that quiet places and teenagers don't usually go together. However, we also know that a writer needs to focus and concentrate to proofread well. All those things that make noise will wait patiently for you to return.


• Focus on one kind of error at a time. As you'll find out in the following sections, there are some proofreading techniques that work well for specific kinds of errors but don't work as well for others. Don't try to find and fix all of them at once.

Now let's move on to proofreading for particular kinds of errors.

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Proofreading for Spelling

Ouch! The moral of that story is to proofread everything, because errors can happen anywhere in a written document. People have even misspelled their own names, obviously not because they didn't know the correct spelling, but because it never occurred to them to proofread every word they wrote.

Writing done on a computer or paper can be easily corrected, but that's not the case if the writing is chiseled in stone or cast in metal like the text below, which appears on an established monument. Can you spot the spelling error? When written words are involved, no person or document is safe from mistakes.

Basically, there are two kinds of spelling errors: those that are easy to find and fix, and those that are not so easy.

First, there are misspellings in which words aren't really words at all (teh instead of the, begining instead of beginning). You can usually catch such typos or mistakes, either on your own or with an electronic spell-checker—IF you proofread, have access to a computer, and use the spell-checker.

The second type of error threatens your writing more, though, because the misspelled word actually is a word, just not the right one (witch for which, bore for boar). Many errors of this kind are caused by homophones, which are closely related to homonyms. The bad news is that spell-checkers will miss most word errors of this kind in the text. In other words, the computer misses precisely the errors that people have a hard time finding. So if you depend on your spell-checker to take care of everything, think again. When electronic gadgets can't proofread efficiently, you're going to have to do it yourself. Still not convinced? Read the following stanzas of a poem about this exact topic.

Imagine you're left to proofread on your own, without access to a computer or spell-checker. You can only be efficient as a spelling proofreader if you keep in mind some major spelling rules. Notice that with almost all of the following rules, there are multiple exceptions that make you want to tear your hair out. If it makes you feel any better, those exceptions make writers, grammarians, and English teachers everywhere want to tear their hair out, too. Causing additional hair-pulling, British and American spellings of many words differ even though English is the common language. With all those things in mind, let's take a quick look at some of the wild and crazy American English spelling rules you should know in order to be a better proofreader.

• IE/EI:
  
  Use I before E, except after C or the long sound of A, like neighbor and weigh.
  
  

  i before e	believe	friend	siege	chief	niece
  ei after c	receive	ceiling	receipt	conceive	deceit
  ei sounds like long a	eight	vein	sleigh	freight	weight

  
  Some exceptions: either, neither, leisure, weird, seize, seizure, foreign, forfeit, height, protein
  


• Prefixes:
  
  When adding a prefix, the spelling of the base word remains the same. (Ironically, one of the most misspelled words is misspell. The prefix mis- is simply added to spell, so the word has two s's, not one.)
  
  Some exceptions: This rule doesn't have any exceptions, but a few prefixes can be followed by a hyphen (for example, self-, all-, ex-).


• Keeping or dropping a silent “e” at the end of a word:
  
  (1) Drop the final e when adding an ending that begins with a vowel (surprising, guidance).
  (2) Keep the silent e when adding an ending that begins with a consonant (careful, accurately).
  
  Some exceptions to (1):
  dyeing (so it's not confused with dying); mileage (so it's not mispronounced incorrectly as milage); noticeable, courageous (so the words will retain the soft rather than the hard sound of c or g)
  
  Some exceptions to (2):
  words like truly (not truely) and argument (not arguement) in which the silent e is preceded by another vowel


• Keeping or dropping a “y” at the end of a word:
  
  (1) With words ending in y preceded by a consonant, change the y to i before any suffix not beginning with i (beauty becomes beautify, worry becomes worried).
  
  (2) Keep the y when it follows a vowel or when the suffix starts with i (pray becomes prayer, study becomes studying).


• Plurals:
  
  The regular way to form the plural of a noun is to add s to the singular form (boys, books, chairs).
  Some exceptions: leaf, leaves; life, lives; child, children; mouse, mice
  
  —Singular nouns ending in s, sh, ch, or x form the plural by adding es (dresses, bushes, beaches, boxes).
  
  —Nouns ending in o preceded by a vowel usually form the plural by adding s (radios, rodeos).
  
  —Nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant usually form the plural by adding es (heroes, potatoes).
  
  Some exceptions: solo, solos; soprano, sopranos; piano, pianos
  


• Using the right word:
  
  Yikes! You know there are lots of homophones, and you know that you sometimes use the wrong ones. Since a spell-checker is useless for this problem, you need to recognize and know the meaning of as many homophones as possible. Click here to link to a site that has an alphabetized list of hundreds of homophones. After you click on a letter of the alphabet (scroll to see the list), you can click on any word to find out its meaning.

Strategies to proofread for spelling

• Most people misspell the same words over and over, so the most helpful strategy for catching spelling errors is to know your own error pattern—the words that always give you trouble. Keep an alphabetized list of the words that trip you up and use it as a reference for proofreading.


• A suggestion that goes along with the previous one is to turn off the spell-checker and only switch it on after you've finished writing. That will enable you to see which spelling mistakes you repeat in your writing.


• Read your paper out loud. This forces you to read each word individually and increases the odds that you'll find misspellings, especially typos and homophones.


• Read each word individually, from right to left, starting at the end of your paper. Yes, that's going backwards, word by word. Because content, punctuation, and grammar won't make any sense, your focus will be entirely on the spelling of individual words.


• Remember the low-tech, tried-and-true strategy: keep a dictionary handy and use it to confirm any word you're unsure about. A computer dictionary is certainly helpful, but it likely falls short of a good college-edition dictionary in paper or CD form. If your spell-checker suggests a bizarre correction for one of your words, don't automatically accept it; instead, use a dictionary to be sure.

And here’s one last thought about spelling. In the world of texting, blogging, e-mailing, and social networking, spelling shortcuts have become the norm. Although “C U 4 lunch 2moro” might be understandable as a quick electronic message to your friend, those condensed versions of words won't make sense in most other writing situations. Certainly, textese works for casual written exchanges; however, appropriate language is essential for more formal writing such as letters, applications, academic papers, and business correspondence. Consider the subject, occasion, audience, and purpose of what you're writing. When you take all those factors into consideration, it's easy to see that both textese and conventional spelling have their places in modern communication.

To check your general spelling knowledge and to gauge your ability to choose correct homophones and differentiate among commonly confused words, take the interactive quiz here.

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Proofreading for Capitalization

You're probably wondering why there's a section about capitalization in a lesson for high school students. After all, you learned all the capitalization rules years ago, right? That may be true, but problems with capitalization keep showing up in high school papers. For you to become an effective proofreader, you need to be sure about capitalization principles that you might not have formally studied in a long time. While we certainly aren't going to discuss every capitalization rule—thank goodness—we are going to review a few that many high school writers either don't remember or don't understand.

• all the important words in a title, including the first and last. Don't capitalize an article, short preposition, or coordinating conjunction unless one of these is the first or last word.


• geographical names that refer to a specific place like the Rocky Mountains. Do not, however, capitalize north, south, east, or west if you're indicating directions; do capitalize them when referring to recognized sections of the country (“Students from the South who go to college in the Northeast have trouble dealing with the bitterly cold weather”).


• the formal name of a specific course, school, or college but not when the name is used as a common noun (“I took Physics I at Wilson High School, but I won't take another physics class at the University of Texas”; “I took a physics course in high school, but I won't take another one in college”).


• the names of relationships only when they form part of a person's name or substitute for a person's name (“I didn't want Aunt Helen to leave, but I hoped my uncle would go”; “I saw my mother at the store, but Dad wasn't there”).


• most titles of persons only when they precede the persons' names (Senator John Smith or John Smith, the senator; Doctor Marie Carter or Marie Carter, a doctor; General Omar Bradley or Omar Bradley, the general; before the club president opened the meeting; four state representatives who attended the conference).
  Exception: It is generally acceptable to capitalize the title of a very high-ranking official or person held in esteem even when that title follows a proper name or is used alone (the President of the United States, the Chief Justice).


• races, nationalities, and languages (Native American, Caucasian, Germans, Italian).


• the first word of a quotation (“Mary said, ‘She is so thin that she can squeeze through the opening.'”)


• the word Internet.

Strategies to proofread for capitalization

Carefully read your paper one sentence at a time to confirm that you capitalized words you should have and didn't capitalize those you shouldn't have. Ask yourself if you're saying what you mean to say. Is each word the right one, or do you change its meaning by making it uppercase or lowercase? When in doubt, look it up in a dictionary, which will usually tell you if a word has a different meaning when it is capitalized.

NOTE: As mentioned in the spelling section, always consider the subject, occasion, audience, and purpose of what you're writing. You might text “i luv u,” but in other forms of writing, please don't use a lowercase letter for the singular pronoun “I” or start a sentence with a lowercase letter. Those errors break the two most basic capitalization rules.

To check your understanding of how to proofread for capitalization, take the challenging interactive quiz here. After you finish the quiz and get your score, you may want to review capitalization some more. If so, click on the “Capitalization” link on the quiz page.

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Proofreading for Punctuation

Now we've come to one of the tougher parts of proofreading: locating and correcting punctuation errors. We'll briefly touch on most kinds of punctuation, but we'll look a little closer at the ones that give students the most trouble. As with spelling and capitalization, we know you've been using these punctuation marks for years; however, to do a good job of proofreading, you need to refresh your memory about functions you might not have studied recently.

	Periods: follow statements, mild commands (Please do not open the door.), and abbreviations that contain or end with small letters (Mrs., Feb., Dr., a.m.). Other abbreviations don't need periods (IBM, USA, PM).
	Question Marks: follow direct questions (Where are you going?) but not indirect questions (Betsy asked whether we were going to the prom).
	Exclamation points: follow interjections (No!), emphatic statements (We must win this game!), or commands (Sit down right now!). lose their effectiveness when overused.
	Em dashes: are made by typing two hyphens (which some computer programs automatically turn into an em dash on the screen). indicate an abrupt change in thought. (“She wouldn't tell me the title of the poem—because the poem didn't have a title.”) set off and emphasize parenthetical information, especially when that information contains internal punctuation. (The qualities he liked in a friend—loyalty, honesty, integrity—were all present in Joe.) should be used sparingly.
	Parentheses: set off supplemental material that is not meant to be part of the main statement. ("My house is about four miles (6.4 kilometers) from the center of town.")
	Brackets: enclose explanations inserted into a quotation to clarify the quotation. (Shakespeare wrote, “Her [his wife's] face is like a delicate flower.”) enclose a parenthetical expression that is already within parentheses. For example: "(My house is about four miles [6.4 kilometers] from the center of town.)"
	Hyphens: form compound adjectives when two or more words serve together as a single modifier before, and only before, a noun (well-known story, full-time job, last-minute date, ten-year-old boy). are used to write numbers (twenty-seven) and fractions (two-thirds). create made-up compound words (Sue's I-can't-believe-you're-doing-that look). attach some prefixes to words (for example, self-pity, all-inclusive, ex-mayor).
	Ellipses: are made up of three spaced dots to indicate that something's been taken out of a quotation. If the omission occurs at the end of a sentence, the ellipsis will be placed after the period, making a total of four dots. . . . If the omission occurs in the middle . . . use three spaced dots.
	Colons: are used before a list or an explanation that is preceded by an independent clause ("I bought three things at the store: gum, juice, and bread"). Do NOT use a colon if a list comes right after a verb or preposition. (You should NOT write "She ate: spinach, corn, and greens." This is also wrong: "He had a basket full of: rocks, dirt, and soil.") join thoughts, but only when the first thought introduces the second ("Troy couldn't believe what Barbara said: 'I hope you lose the race'"). are usually followed by a lowercase word unless that word is a proper noun or the first word of a complete sentence. If you're still uncertain about colons and would like to do an interactive exercise about their use, click here.
	Semicolons: seperate independent clauses that are not joined by a comma and coordinating conjunction. (Dennis likes Ruth Ann; Ruth Ann prefers Ron.) seperate independent clauses joined by a conjunctive adverb or an expression such as "for example" or "that is." Generally, the conjunctive adverb or expression is followed by a comma. ("Gene enjoyed the movie; however, he thought the popcorn cost too much.") separate items in a series when those items already contain commas. ("After the war, Uncle Cecil lived in Amarillo, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Tucson, Arizona.) separate independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction when those clauses already contain several commas. ("The Gentry, the new theater on Main Street, announced it would show horror films, old black-and-white movies, and new releases; and men, women, and children of all ages turned out by the hundreds to buy tickets.")
	Apostrophes: can make nouns and indefinite pronouns possessive —Add ‘s singular nouns, even ones that end in s (cat's food, Larry's head, James's car, business's sale). —Add 's to indefinite pronouns—words that stand in for nouns without specifying who or what they replace (everybody's money, anyone's guess) —Add âs to plural nouns not ending in s (children's park, men's trousers, geese's feathers). —Add only an apostrophe to plural nouns that end in s (workers' benefits, Joneses' house, drivers' maneuvers). —Add ‘s only to the last word of compound words or groups (sister-in-law's energy, somebody else's fault). —If two or more people have something jointly, use the possessive form for only the last person named (Mom and Dad's room); if more than one person is mentioned, and each possesses something of his or her own, use the possessive form for each person. Here's an example: Sally's and Sara's tickets. Sally has a ticket of her own, and so does Sara. Here, 's is appropriate to both girls even though their tickets are referred to collectively. can create contractions by indicating omission (for example, it's = it is; they're = they are; let's = let us; weren't = were not; class of '12 = class of 2012). Note that its, their, your, and whose are possessive pronouns, just like my, mine, his, and hers. It's, they're, you're, and who's are contractions, not possessives. can create plurals of letters, numerals, symbols, and words used to represent themselves (three z's, not many 100's, a few &s;'s, several and's). Note, however, that many current style guides do not recommend the apostrophe for these cases. Check with your teacher for clarification. If you would like to do an interactive exercise to practice the use of whose and who's, click here. If its and it's confuse you, click here to do an interactive exercise to practice using them correctly.
	Quotation marks: enclose direct quotations (He said, “I refuse to drive that car“; “Please take out the trash,“ she begged, “before you go to work.“) Note that single quotation marks are used to enclose a quotation within a quotation. “The purpose of the book,” he explained, “is to examine the meaning of the expression 'Worst is best.'” do not enclose indirect quotations. You should not use quotation marks to explain in your own words what someone else said. For example, if you wrote "John said that he refuses to drive that car," you would not put John's words in quotation marks—unless you meant to indicate that these were his exact words. enclose the titles of short works. This includes songs, poems, magazine articles, essays, short stories, episodes of TV or radio programs, chapters or subdivisions of books, and pages or documents on a website. are used in specific ways with other pieces of punctuation —Always place commas and periods inside of closing quotation marks. —Always place colons and semicolons outside of closing quotation marks. —Place a question mark or exclamation point inside quotation marks only if it belongs to the quotation. (“Are the players ready?” asked the referee. “You really make me angry!” she exclaimed.) —Place a question mark or exclamation point outside quotation marks if it applies only to the larger sentence, not to the quotation. (Were you surprised when he said, “Hop in”?) To practice, click here for an interactive exercise that will let you know how well you proofread for quotation marks and accompanying punctuation.
	Commas: (There are many more comma rules than the ones below, but these particular rules are broken most often.) are used with coordinating conjunctions to join independent clauses ("Peter opened the window, and I climbed in.") seperate introductory elements from the main clauses that follow. Common introductory elements include the following: —Adverb ("Frankly, I don't care what you think." "Meanwhile, the storm destroyed the town.") —Infinitive phrase ("To conclude, he announced his retirement." "To avoid the rush, Karol shopped early.") —Prepositional phrase ("In Grandmother's house, we follow the rules." "On the other hand, Bob deserves what he got.") —Participial phrase ("Drinking the soda in gulps, he almost choked." "Removed from the team, Gloria was devastated.") —Subordinate clause ("When the alarm rang, I jumped up." "Even though he warned me, I went anyway.") set off nonessential elements —nonessential clauses and phrases ("The lawyer, who is from Texas, won the important case." "Dr. Trent was a genius, helping to write nine books.) —nonessential appositives ("Cormac McCarthy, a great writer, used to live in El Paso. Blood Meridian, his best novel, is very descriptive.") Be careful NOT to set off essential appositives. For example, in the sentence "The great writer Cormac McCarthy used to live in El Paso," all the information is essential to the meaning of the sentence, so no commas are needed. set off nouns of direct address no matter where they appear in a sentence ("Josh, you are very late." "You are very late, Josh." "You, Josh, are very late.") Notice that if the noun of direct address is in the middle of the sentence, commas are needed on both sides of it. separate items in a list or series (She worked at embassies in London, Paris, and Dublin). —American writing calls for the last comma before the conjunction; magazines and newspapers, however, follow a journalistic style that omits the comma before the conjunction. —Don't use commas if all items in the list are joined by and or or (no commas in "Jorge's shirt is yellow and white and blue"). separate coordinate adjectives ("We sat through a long, dull, amateurish performance.") —To determine if the adjectives are coordinate and need commas, try two tests: (1) If you can reverse the order of the adjectives and the sentence makes sense, the adjectives are coordinate. (2) If you can insert and between the adjectives and the sentence makes sense, the adjectives are coordinate. —Noncoordinate adjectives need no punctuation. You would not use commas in "Six beautiful runway models walked in the door." The adjectives in that sentence cannot pass the two tests that coordinate adjectives can. If you would like to practice proofreading just for commas, click here to do an interactive exercise that will give you immediate feedback.

Strategies to proofread for punctuation

• You have been writing essays and other types of papers for years, so you know which punctuation has caused problems for you in the past. Check carefully for the punctuation errors that have kept showing up in your writing.


• Read your work out loud because hearing the words can sometimes give you hints as to where punctuation is needed. The emphasis and length of pauses can serve as hints, too, about which punctuation is appropriate.


• Read your writing silently, one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working your way to the beginning of the paper. It's easier to notice punctuation and some other types of errors when you're not reading the content in proper order.
  
• If you get stuck on which punctuation to use in a certain situation, don't just guess; instead, take the time to look up the information you need. The time will not be wasted because you can use it as well as add it to your knowledge bank for future papers.
  

As a culminating activity, see how well you can proofread for all kinds of punctuation by doing two short quizzes.

Click here for the first quizzes and click here for the second. They are different, and each gives you immediate feedback.

Good luck with your proofreading!

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Resources

Please note that the resources open in a new window/tab in your browser. To return to this lesson, close the additional resource window/tab.

Resources Used in this Lesson: Bibliography

Aloisi, Al. “A Complete Homophone List.” Homophone.com.

Cagle, Emily. “Embarrassing Errors – The Ten Biggest Proofreading Gaffes.” Ezine Articles: Writing and Speaking. September 4, 2009.

Farrell, Jim. “A Circus Fire Addendum.” iTowns(blog). Hartford Courant. April 16, 2008.

Fowler, H. Ramsey, and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown Handbook. New York: Pearson Education, 2007.

“Interactive Quizzes.” Guide to Grammar and Writing. Capital Community College Foundation.

Mali, Taylor. “The the impotence of proofreading.” Taylormali.com.

Nordquist, Richard. “The Spell Checker Poem, by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar: The Facts Behind ‘Candidate for a Pullet Surprise.'” About.com Grammar & Composition.

Simmons, Robin L. “Exercises at Grammar Bytes!” Grammar Bytes!. Accessed January 4, 2011.

“SMS Language.” Wikipedia. Last modified January 2, 2011.

Trimble, John R. Writing with style: Conversations on the art of writing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975.

Warriner, John E., and Francis Griffith. English Grammar and Composition: Complete Course. Dallas: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

Writer's Choice: Grammar and Composition, Grade 12. Peoria: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2001.