Proofreading: Some Strategies
1. Read your work out loud.
• Do the sentences flow nicely, without jumping between ideas?
• Does the language sound natural?
• Are there any words missing?
2. Read your work backwards, from the last sentence to the first.
• Are there some words that are not adding value?
• Are there some sentences that do not belong or do not make sense?
3. Read your work forwards, with your finger on the “backspace”
button!
• Make each sentence justify its own existence: what if it were not there?
• Could you say the same thing in fewer words?
4. Keep rereading, with a focus on a different thing each time:
• Read once, only looking for punctuation errors.
• Read again, only looking at your vocabulary.
…and so on.
Linking Sentences Together
• Think of every sentence as a link in a chain.
• As you move to a new sentence, look for something in the last
sentence that you could use again in the new one to help link the two.
My friend has many unusual hobbies, all of which I find entertaining. One of
these hobbies involves him removing the skin from onions in the supermarket
to save money. Clearly, the amount of money he can save from this action
is minimal!