Kan Dail
For many students, proofreading and editing their papers before submission seems to be even more challenging than writing them. Due to this reason, many young people skip this stage completely. And, of course, they often pay for this negligence with a low grade.
In order to avoid this and ensure that you always score A’s for your papers, you need to learn how to polish your papers to perfection. An easy way to do this is to entrust this matter to professionals. Top-rated experts from buyessay can not only write a great essay for you from scratch but also proofread and edit the one you craft yourself. Turning to them for help will help you get a high grade with ease.
However, if you want to do this on your own, you must be wondering where to start. In this article, we will give you a detailed checklist that will help you ensure that your essay looks great!
References
Ideas That Are Not Yours
While writing your essay, you will definitely resort to books, expert opinions, and other people’s ideas on your topic. Doing so is right as it adds depth to your paper. However, every idea that wasn’t referenced will be considered plagiarized. Thus, the very first thing you want to check before the submission is the ideas you’ve used. Read carefully through your text to see if there still are any ideas that are not yours and aren’t referenced appropriately. If yes, be sure to include them in your list of references.
List of References
Once you ensure that all external sources are featured in your list of references (or bibliography), it’s time to go to that list and check it. Carefully review every entry and ensure that they are formatted according to the required referencing style.
Pro tip: Don’t focus solely on primary sources. Ensure that you cite every external resource that you used, including primary and secondary sources.
Writing Style
Grammar and Spelling
Once you ensure that you’ve handled references correctly, move on to the overall style of your paper. First of all, proofread and edit it for grammar and spelling. Carefully read the text to spot any mistakes and typos that might be there. Feel free to leverage reliable tools like Grammarly to automate this process and spend less time on editing.
Punctuation and Syntax
When there are no grammar mistakes, the next thing you need to check is punctuation. After this, you also need to check syntax – ensure that your text reads well and that there is a logical link between all clauses. The easiest way to do this is to read your paper out loud.
Tone of Voice and Vocabulary
A great essay should be clear, logical, and consistent. There is no space for vague words, generalizations, or slang. All in all, the tone of voice and vocabulary also play a huge role in your success, so this is one more thing you need to check. If you are an experienced editor, you should be able to do this on your own. However, if you feel like you lack experience, you can either use an advanced editing tool or ask someone else to proofread it for you.
Content
Structure
Re-read your essay to see how well you structured it. You want to ensure that your text contains all primary structure elements, such as an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Also, you need to ensure that there are smooth and clear transitions between your sentences and paragraphs.
Argument
When the overall structure looks good, you also need to check the main argument in your essay. To do this, first of all, read the thesis statement. Then, go over your body paragraphs to see if all ideas presented there go in line with this statement and that all supporting arguments are relevant to it as well. In the end, re-read your conclusion to see if it fits the overall essay content well and that it is aligned with your thesis.
General Requirements
Overall Guidelines
Finally, when everything looks great, we recommend going back to the general task guidelines provided by your professor. First of all, read the given essay question or prompt and ask yourself if your paper answers it clearly and logically. Then take a look at the word count suggested by your professor. You need to ensure that you haven’t exceeded it. And at the same time, your word count shouldn’t be significantly lower than the recommended one.
Formatting
When you are done with the overall guidelines, take some time to check the formatting of your work. Different schools and professors may have different requirements for formatting. Thus, if anything is unclear, you should clarify it with your teacher. And when you have all the formatting guidelines clarified, check if your text is formatted exactly according to them. Pay attention to all the details, including the font, text size, margins, etc.
Plagiarism
As you should already know, most teachers have zero tolerance for plagiarism. Most often, they will run students’ papers through anti-plagiarism software to ensure that there is no plagiarized content, and if you want to get a high grade, you need to ensure that your essay will pass this check. To do this, find reliable plagiarism-detection software. For example, you can try Turnitin, Grammarly, or Quetext. Once you find a suitable tool, run your text through it to ensure that it has a high uniqueness score. If not, take enough time to fix the mistakes and repeat this step until you get an acceptable score.
The Bottom Line
So now you know about the most crucial things that you want to check before submitting your next essay. Keep this list at hand and use it whenever you are dealing with academic writing. Do it, and you will start scoring high grades without a hassle!