With the vast technology available publicly, professors are becoming less and less empathetic about mistakes, even if there is almost no way to hand in an error free paper. To come closest to perfection, follow these steps before turning your essays in to the professor.
1. Microsoft Word Spell check/ Grammar check
It may never find every problem, and I know for a fact that is it occasionally wrong, but if Word is confused about your sentence structure, other readers may also be. Don’t include sentences which are so complicated that even a computer can’t understand it.
Word also illuminates microscopic errors that you would have never noticed: more spaces in between words than necessary, and that ever elusive eachother/ each other typo.
2. Have others read your paper
Even if the only one willing is your mother who had never attended college, an outside and unbiased person is more likely to read your paper slowly and conscientiously, thus finding more mistakes that you. If you can, have multiple people, a writing center, or best of all, your professor read the paper. Did you know that 89% students get higher grades by hiring essay editors?
3. Read your paper out loud
And preferably a few days after you have written it. Reading it silently will lead to your mind to automatically fill in your mistakes. Reading out loud also gives you a better sense of the flow of your paper, so that if you can’t even pronounce your sentences correctly, no one else will.
4. Read every sentence or word from the end to the beginning
This separates each from the other so that you can focus on each phrase and syllable.
5. Have all of your tools ready for editing
You are more likely to actively fix your paper if a pen, dictionary, and Thesaurus are within arm’s distance.
Use as many of these tools as possible and find that your essay’s will become clearer and more successful.
