Essay Sample on Proofing for Grammar

Introduction

Proofreading is a very important step in any type of writing and is done after the completion of text writing. Proofreading can be used to identify familiar errors in text and also to make the sentences in the text clearer and easy to understand. It can be used to check on repetition and unnecessary phrases in the text for correctional purposes. It can also enable one to spot the mistakes that they frequently make during writing and allow them to correct them before handing in the task. This prevents them from making the same mistakes in the subsequent drafts.

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There are several strategies used in proofreading; they guide the writer on how to easily identify mistakes made in a text and how to prevent repeating the same mistakes in the subsequent drafts. These tips include; checking for familiar errors which involve checking for specific errors that the writer frequently makes to avoid repetition of the same mistakes.

The writer should not solely depend on the spelling and grammar checkers, for example, word's Spell Checker and Grammarly. This is because they may not identify words used in the wrong context since they only give hints. It can be best done at a specific time of the day depending on the level of concentration of the writer at that time, in order to spot errors easily. A different person can be used to proofread, the person can read the text aloud for the writer to point out the errors. The person can also go through the text for the writer to identify the mistakes the writer might have left out.

There are several grammar-related issues made in writing. They include; wrong punctuation for example wrong use of commas and semicolons. Commas are used to distinguish independent clauses for example, "my mother is very smart, and she is my role model." They are also used in a series of elements to separate them for example, "my father bought me a book, a pen, and a bicycle." Semicolons are used to join two independent clauses that are closely related but could be dependent for example, "come home now; there is an emergency." This can be corrected by proofreading after taking some time off so as to see point out these mistakes easily while viewing the document differently.

Title capitalization is another mistake commonly made in writing. The rules governing capitalization of titles include; capitalizing keywords including pronouns, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and capitalizing the words that come first and last. It can be corrected by printing a hard copy of the text. Wrong use of words is another mistake commonly made in writing. For example, there is commonly used instead of they're, further is confused with farther, between is used in the place of among and complement is often confused with a compliment. It can be corrected by reading the text aloud and slowly.

Conclusion

Proofreading can enable a writer to identify such commonly made mistakes by checking for one error at a time, printing the text in hardcopy and reading it aloud and slowly to identify mistakes that might not have been spotted when reading silently. This clearly shows the importance of revision in a text which is to avoid making mistakes that could otherwise be avoided.

References

Brockett, C., Dolan, W. B., & Gamon, M. (2006). Correcting ESL errors using phrasal SMT techniques. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Computational Linguistics and the 44th annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Association for Computational Linguistics. p. 249-256