As opposed to presenting myself as the fount of (writing) knowledge to my students, most of my advice boils down to variations of the same statement: “This is what I did . . . be smarter than me and do the exact opposite.” And, as with many things we discuss, this is true when it comes to the final proofreading of papers for class.

Back when I was an undergraduate—you know, in ye olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I used an IBM Selectric typewriter—I wrote the majority of my papers exactly the same way: I’d start around 9-10 pm the night before it was due, I confused desperation with inspiration, and when the cold, gray light of dawn arrived the next morning, I’d yank the last page out of the carriage and think, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last.”

What did I learn about the writing process by doing this?

Absolutely nothing.

This was also the case when it came to proofreading process for the paper I’d just finished. (That is, there was no proofreading so there was no process.) First, it was typed (instead of printed), which meant fixing even a single typo was a ginormous hassle. Second, I didn’t have any extra time to fix anything even if I wanted to. Third, I was so thickheaded—that is, even more than normal—from being up all night that I couldn’t have seen the vast majority of mistakes anyway.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. So here are my top nine tips for making sure your paper’s grammar, spelling, and punctuation are as squared away as possible before you turn it in.

1. First of all, make sure your paper is actually finished. That is, if you’re engaged in the process of producing the content of your paper and/or shaping that content into the paper itself, you’re probably still writing, deleting, moving, rewording, and/or reworking your content to the degree that fine tuning the final presentation would be a waste of time.
2. When you’re finished, however, take a break from the paper. If you’ve already been staring at it endless hours, your eyes aren’t fresh enough to catch the kinds of pokey errors you’ve got to have cleaned up before turning the final draft in. Ideally, get a good night of sleep in between finishing your paper and doing the final proofreading.
3. When you go back to the paper with fresh eyes, don’t proofread only it on the screen. I don’t know why it is, but by virtue of printing out and proofing a hard copy, you’ll see things you don’t see on the screen.
4. Read your paper aloud. This will force you to read every word whereas reading it silently to yourself presents the opportunity to glide past mistakes you already missed several times up to that point.
5. Read your paper aloud backwards. Start with the last paragraph, read it aloud, then do the same with the paragraph before it and so on. Reading your paper out of order like this will help you see it with fresher eyes. Plus, if you only proofread by starting at the beginning, the first couple of pages will likely look good but as you get tired you’ll miss things near the end.
6. Read your paper several times looking a specific pattern of error each time. That is, don’t try to see everything all at the same time. If you know you have a problem confusing plural with singular possessive, read your paper solely checking every example of a plural noun to make sure it is used correctly. Or check every comma to make sure it’s not a comma splice. Or make sure all your commas and periods are inside close quotation marks. Making 3-5 quick passes through your paper looking for one thing in particular each time will be much more efficient and productive than one laborious read trying to catch everything all at once.
7. Have someone else read your paper. If you have a friend, family member, or fellow student whose opinion you trust, by all means have them take a look at your paper to see what they can find that needs to be fixed.
8. Have someone else read your paper aloud to you. Print off two copies: one for them and one for you. The beauty of this is that they don’t have to know anything about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Just listen to them and follow along on your copy. Any time they sound confused, have to stop, and/or back up to start over, make a note as this is probably a spot you need to take a closer look at.
9. Take advantage of your school’s resources. Does your school have a writing center? Use it! Does your school subscribe to an online tutorial service like Smarthinking? Use it! You’re already paying your school to make these services available so take full advantage of them in order to, at the very least, get your money’s worth. Sure, back when I was younger—and, therefore, much more full of myself—I would have taken it as a personal insult to use a writing center or online service. That’s also a case of look at what I did (or didn’t do) and do the exact opposite so you’ll have the best chance possible to actually learn something.

All of these suggestions are, however, predicated on the idea that you finish your paper far enough ahead of time that you have the time to do any or all of the things above. (And time management is a completely different—although equally important—issue to tackle.)

Finally, the one thing I’d ask is what are the additional/different suggestions you have for the final proofreading process? What works for you? What doesn’t work for you? All I can ever offer is what’s worked for me in the past . . . but I’m always looking for something new to add to my fount of knowledge to pass along to my students.

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