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  Proofreading or "Proofing":    In order to edit your work, take the cleanest copy of your writing and review it line by line. Double space your work and make certain that you have printed the latest draft of your work. 

Writers will often tell you that proofing their own work is frequently the most difficult task in the writing process. After two drafts (and maybe more), writers have a tendency not to see, and therefore to ignore errors on the page. Their minds automatically substitute the correct forms for the errors. Thus, the errors on the page go unseen and uncorrected! 

 

For computerized work: Double space your work and make certain that you have printed the latest draft of your work.

    Any writer will tell you that proofing one's own work can be the most difficult task in the writing process. After two drafts (and maybe more), writers have a tendency to unintentionally ignore errors. Their minds automatically substitute the correct forms for the errors.  Thus, the errors on the page go unseen and uncorrected!  Try one of the following methods to help you avoid this common proofreading problem: 

Paper Liner:  Take a clean sheet of white paper and place it horizontally across your written page. Block out all lines other than the one you are currently reading. This enables you to focus on only one line at a time. Once you are certain that the line you are working on is error free, slide the liner down to read the next line.

• Reading Backwards:  Reading your work from the end to the beginning.  So the sentence just before would be read: .beginning the to end the from work your Reading  The sentence does not make sense when read in this fashion; however, you have to slow down and focus on every word to read it, no? This provides you with a better chance to catch errors like spelling and punctuation.

• Hand it off to a friend:  Some people just don't seem to catch all the errors in their writing no matter how many times they read it over. For these people, it's best to give it to a friend to read. Because that friend has never read the work, (or at least the latest revision), he/she is more likely to read it closely and carefully.