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What is the main purpose of proofreading a paper?

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It’s commonplace to feel nervous about submitting your scientific work. Whether you’re concerned about meeting research reviewers’ high expectations and/or the target journals’ guidelines. Proofreading is the final stage before a manuscript leaves your hands and enters the expanding universe of appraisal for publication. So, it makes sense that you want to deliver a perfectly written document, and avoid embarrassing mistakes.

Most of us simply have either friends or colleagues proofread our work, but they may have their own limitations regarding proficiency in text writing. Instead, it’s highly advised that you look for professional help at this important stage.

The main purpose of proofreading is to improve the quality of the paper, ensuring there are no lingering mistakes, and correcting generalized discourse errors or writing inconsistencies. Essentially, you want to make sure you have a well-defined communication goal. Analyzing whether the content is properly conveyed, and the sentences are syntactically and grammatically well-written, are just two of the basic tasks to achieve publication-ready work. Specifically, a perfect manuscript, ready to be published in the most recognized scientific journals.

What is proofreading

Proofreading is the last writing process before the author submits the article for publication. It is the stage of verification, by the author him or herself, or by another person. Thus, it is not only important to check grammar and spelling, it is also highly advised to ensure that the idea of the writer/author is in agreement with what he or she wants to communicate with the audience. In other words, that the article/work is clearly written for its intended target audience.

Proofreading Vs. Editing

Paper proofreader.

How often have you conducted high-quality research, but the article about that research didn’t match the quality of the research itself? How many times have you regretted missing a mistake that ultimately led to a failed submission?

Proofreading ensures flawless content for publication, increasing your chances of success. An excellent paper proofreader checks all digital sources related to the document, including websites, email addresses, etc.

A good paper proofreader is someone who will take care of your work as if it were his or her own and, in addition to correcting grammar errors, also detects the possibility of scientific plagiarism. Proofreading your scientific article using scientific editing will save you from the humiliation of having your article rejected by scientific journals due to grammatical errors or inadequate language.

Why is proofreading important?

Effective proofreading is absolutely essential for producing high-quality documents, whether academic or professional. When done clearly, correctly and thoroughly, proofreading can be the difference between writing something that communicates as it is supposed to or a huge misunderstanding. It can also be the difference between acceptance and rejection in a distinguished journal. No author creates an excellent text without reviewing, reflecting, and revising – or trusting someone to do so – before the final version of their manuscript is complete and submitted.

Language and text reviewing are important to detect:

• Grammar mistakes and numbering errors – e.g. forms of numbers, short and scientific forms, degrees of comparison, etc.
• Spelling mistakes – simple misspellings, or incorrect use of a homonym (words that sound alike, but have different meanings, e.g. “read,” for “red”), typographical error, etc.
• Inconsistency in the document format – this can be simple font, spacing and justification rules, or standard format for the applicable research sub-type (e.g. research review versus experiment)
• Punctuation errors – missing or extra commas, periods, and/or quotation marks used incorrectly
• Misplaced words – correct word choice improves the quality of your content
• Poorly structured paragraphs
• Errors in sentence structure

Whatever the nature of your research, Elsevier will be glad to give you a hand in reviewing and amending your manuscript. Professional editors can proofread your document so the final product is well-written, precise, and easy to read. With Elsevier’s medical editing and proofreading services team, we can help you with grammar, syntax, spelling, and punctuation; maximizing impact, and increasing your chances of publication.

Language Editing Services by Elsevier Author Services:

Find more about our  Language Editing Standard : completion within 7 business days; editing by native speakers in (scientific) American or British English; PhD or PhD candidates selection according to your field of study and an exclusive guarantee: free re-edit or your money back.

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Steps for Revising Your Paper

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Proofreading is primarily about searching your writing for errors, both grammatical and typographical, before submitting your paper for an audience (a teacher, a publisher, etc.). Use this resource to help you find and fix common errors.

When you have plenty of time to revise, use the time to work on your paper and to take breaks from writing. If you can forget about your draft for a day or two, you may return to it with a fresh outlook. During the revising process, put your writing aside at least twice—once during the first part of the process, when you are reorganizing your work, and once during the second part, when you are polishing and paying attention to details.

Use the following questions to evaluate your drafts. You can use your responses to revise your papers by reorganizing them to make your best points stand out, by adding needed information, by eliminating irrelevant information, and by clarifying sections or sentences.

Find your main point.

What are you trying to say in the paper? In other words, try to summarize your thesis, or main point, and the evidence you are using to support that point. Try to imagine that this paper belongs to someone else. Does the paper have a clear thesis? Do you know what the paper is going to be about?

Identify your readers and your purpose.

What are you trying to do in the paper? In other words, are you trying to argue with the reading, to analyze the reading, to evaluate the reading, to apply the reading to another situation, or to accomplish another goal?

Evaluate your evidence.

Does the body of your paper support your thesis? Do you offer enough evidence to support your claim? If you are using quotations from the text as evidence, did you cite them properly?

Save only the good pieces.

Do all of the ideas relate back to the thesis? Is there anything that doesn't seem to fit? If so, you either need to change your thesis to reflect the idea or cut the idea.

Tighten and clean up your language.

Do all of the ideas in the paper make sense? Are there unclear or confusing ideas or sentences? Read your paper out loud and listen for awkward pauses and unclear ideas. Cut out extra words, vagueness, and misused words.

Visit the Purdue OWL's vidcast on cutting during the revision phase for more help with this task.

Eliminate mistakes in grammar and usage.

Do you see any problems with grammar, punctuation, or spelling? If you think something is wrong, you should make a note of it, even if you don't know how to fix it. You can always talk to a Writing Lab tutor about how to correct errors.

Switch from writer-centered to reader-centered.

Try to detach yourself from what you've written; pretend that you are reviewing someone else's work. What would you say is the most successful part of your paper? Why? How could this part be made even better? What would you say is the least successful part of your paper? Why? How could this part be improved?

How to Proofread

Proofreading is an important skill for any writer. Whether you are a researcher or an academic, writing and publishing are important parts of your career. Before you submit any article for publication, you must proofread it thoroughly. How is proofreading done? In this article, we will review the key parts of proofreading, discuss how it differs from other types of editing, and give you some tips on ways to effectively proofread your own papers. We will focus on English proofreading , but you can apply these tips to proofreading in another language as well.

What is Proofreading? Proofreading is when you carefully check a document for errors such as basic grammar, style and consistency before it is published or submitted for publication. Proofreading focuses specifically on “minor” errors and consistency rather than major errors or content suggestions. Items that a proofreader should review include proper spelling, capitalization, spacing between words, punctuation, and formatting. For writers who are submitting an article to a publisher that requires a specific citation format (APA, Chicago, etc.), the step of proofreading is when you check whether the formatting in your document adheres to the demands of the citation style. While most of us think of “citation style” as only applying to references, in fact, citation style guides also specify how section headings and table or figure headings should look.

How do you Proofread Documents? Professional proofreaders develop their own style and process for effectively proofreading documents over time. This process can vary depending on the type of document. Technical documents that have formulas or complex figures may require a proofreader to pay special attention to punctuation or capitalization. For example, while in English, there is generally a space between a word and a parenthesis, in chemical formulas, there is no space. Many proofreaders who offer professional proofreading services find it most effective to begin their work by reviewing different sections at a time. For example, a proofreader may begin by reviewing all of the headings and chapter titles to ensure they are consistent and correct. Next, the proofreader may then go back through the document focusing on any tables or figures. It is only at the end that a proofreader will read through the entire document to see if there are any problems or errors that they missed the first few times.

Tips for Proofreading Effectively While each proofreader has their own methodology, all proofreaders should keep several things in mind. The following are some tips from experienced proofreaders that can help make the job easier. The first five tips are general recommendations for anyone who is faced with the task of proofreading, particularly proofreading their own work. The second five tips presume that you are using a word processing program such as Microsoft Word to perform the task of English proofreading .

• Take a break from the text. You should never finish writing a text and then directly begin proofreading. You need a break of at least several hours and preferably several days so that you can approach the text with a fresh set of eyes.
• Approach the text in sections. Don’t read it straight through. Begin by focusing on headings, then address tables and figures. Read different paper sections out of order. Reading the entire paper through should be your final step.
• Stay consistent. If you make a change to a word, phrase, punctuation mark, etc., make sure that the change you made is reflected throughout the entire text.
• Print out the text and review the hard copy version when you do your final proofreading round. This isn’t always feasible for every document. However, it is well-documented that reading on paper allows people to catch errors they might miss when reading on a computer screen.
• Read aloud. Sometimes it is easier to catch errors when you hear what you read. Reading aloud can also help you stay focused.
• Review your spellchecking settings before you begin. You can select which errors you would like the program to focus on and which ones you don’t care about. Do you love the Oxford comma? You can make spellcheck mark an error where it hasn’t been used.
• Never, ever rely fully on spellchecking programs. While spellcheckers can be a lifesaver, you cannot depend on them to do the entire job for you. Spellcheckers will not pick up on words that are used incorrectly (to vs. too vs. two). In addition, if you are editing a paper or article that incorporates foreign language terms, spellcheckers will have difficulty properly distinguishing errors.
• Know your language and citation style. Should the paper be in American English? British English? Are all of the citations correctly formatted? If you have the time, it doesn’t hurt to check citation formatting against an online citation generator.
• Use the “find and replace all” function. In many documents, if an error has been made once, it has been made throughout the text. Learning how to use “find and replace all” when you come across an error can save you lots of time and effort.
• Get familiar with the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. English is a complex and inconsistent language with numerous variations. Sometimes there can be more than one right answer. If you aren’t sure whether to use “on” or “in,” or whether Americans use “analyse” or “analyze,” the corpus can tell you which words and phrases are most common and in what context. Both are available online for free.

Proofreading your own work can be difficult and tedious. Fortunately, there are numerous professional proofreading services available. Hiring proofreading services can be particularly useful for anyone who needs to strictly adhere to a particular citation style. Professional proofreading services have the expertise and resources to ensure that your document meets all of the requirements. Whether you hire someone or you do it yourself, proofreading is an essential step for any writer before publication.

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Proofreading and editing your work is an essential final step to completing your written piece. We all make mistakes, and it is impossible to get it perfect on your first go, so it is key that you make sure you proofread and edit your work once you have finished writing it. Here are some tips for you to keep in mind next time you conduct final checks on your work.

Check structure and flow

The most effective way to proofread your work is to start with making sure that the overall structure and logic of the piece is consistent. Check that everything you have written is linked with the rest of the article/chapter in a sensible manner and that the piece flows naturally. Only when that has been done should you move onto the details.

Proofread for spelling and grammar

Proofreading is your last chance to pick up on small mistakes, be they missing punctuation or trivial misspellings. Modern spellcheck software has become very sophisticated, so will likely have picked most of these up, but they are still not always entirely accurate, so make sure you also go through your work with a fine eye, picking up on the smallest mistakes . 

Some people find that it helps to mark up a hard copy , which helps to remove distractions and reduces your screen time. Working on printed drafts also makes it easier to jot down notes and thoughts, which can feel more natural to do by hand. 

Use track changes and save separate documents

When you edit, the most important thing is to be organised about it so as not to lose work. Do this by enabling the track changes option in your word processor if it has one, and saving every version separately, marking them with version numbers, dates or whatever works for you. Tracking your changes is particularly useful if you are collaborating on a document or need to have it approved by somebody else, enabling them to see the changes you made or make their own changes and suggestions without overwriting the piece itself. 

Remember you are editing, not rewriting 

Once you have proofread your work and identified areas of improvement, it’s time to edit. It’s tempting to get trigger-happy here, deleting entire sentences or even paragraphs because on reflection, they seem misplaced or superfluous. As with anything, one can easily fall into the trap of over-editing work or be tempted to rewrite substantial chunks of the paper or chapter. You may get too hung up on a particular wording, feel that you haven’t used language that’s interesting enough or add too many explanations into your text, making it clunky to read. 

The point here is to take the ‘ less is more ’ approach to editing by prioritising fixing mistakes that you have spotted to ensure readability. You are effectively done writing, so put a line under it and simply get it to a state where you’re happy to publish it.

Proofreading and editing your work is the final pass, giving you the opportunity to correct any mistakes and make sure that your piece is as readable as it can be . Just remember to take a careful last look, remain organised and not overthink it – then your final result will shine.

Read previous/third in series: From writing to submission: Simple strategies to Make Your Scientific Article (Read) Better

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Editing and Proofreading

What this handout is about.

This handout provides some tips and strategies for revising your writing. To give you a chance to practice proofreading, we have left seven errors (three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors) in the text of this handout. See if you can spot them!

Is editing the same thing as proofreading?

Not exactly. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading

• Get some distance from the text! It’s hard to edit or proofread a paper that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still to familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. Go for a run. Take a trip to the beach. Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. Someone who is reading the paper for the first time, comes to it with completely fresh eyes.
• Decide which medium lets you proofread most carefully. Some people like to work right at the computer, while others like to sit back with a printed copy that they can mark up as they read.
• Try changing the look of your document. Altering the size, spacing, color, or style of the text may trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing an unfamiliar document, and that can help you get a different perspective on what you’ve written.
• Find a quiet place to work. Don’t try to do your proofreading in front of the TV or while you’re chugging away on the treadmill. Find a place where you can concentrate and avoid distractions.
• If possible, do your editing and proofreading in several short blocks of time. Your concentration may start to wane if you try to proofread the entire text at one time.
• If you’re short on time, you may wish to prioritize. Make sure that you complete the most important editing and proofreading tasks.

Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. You can edit on several levels:

Have you done everything the assignment requires? Are the claims you make accurate? If it is required to do so, does your paper make an argument? Is the argument complete? Are all of your claims consistent? Have you supported each point with adequate evidence? Is all of the information in your paper relevant to the assignment and/or your overall writing goal? (For additional tips, see our handouts on understanding assignments and developing an argument .)

Overall structure

Does your paper have an appropriate introduction and conclusion? Is your thesis clearly stated in your introduction? Is it clear how each paragraph in the body of your paper is related to your thesis? Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence? Have you made clear transitions between paragraphs? One way to check the structure of your paper is to make a reverse outline of the paper after you have written the first draft. (See our handouts on introductions , conclusions , thesis statements , and transitions .)

Structure within paragraphs

Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? Does each paragraph stick to one main idea? Are there any extraneous or missing sentences in any of your paragraphs? (See our handout on paragraph development .)

Have you defined any important terms that might be unclear to your reader? Is the meaning of each sentence clear? (One way to answer this question is to read your paper one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working backwards so that you will not unconsciously fill in content from previous sentences.) Is it clear what each pronoun (he, she, it, they, which, who, this, etc.) refers to? Have you chosen the proper words to express your ideas? Avoid using words you find in the thesaurus that aren’t part of your normal vocabulary; you may misuse them.

Have you used an appropriate tone (formal, informal, persuasive, etc.)? Is your use of gendered language (masculine and feminine pronouns like “he” or “she,” words like “fireman” that contain “man,” and words that some people incorrectly assume apply to only one gender—for example, some people assume “nurse” must refer to a woman) appropriate? Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences? Do you tends to use the passive voice too often? Does your writing contain a lot of unnecessary phrases like “there is,” “there are,” “due to the fact that,” etc.? Do you repeat a strong word (for example, a vivid main verb) unnecessarily? (For tips, see our handouts on style and gender-inclusive language .)

Have you appropriately cited quotes, paraphrases, and ideas you got from sources? Are your citations in the correct format? (See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for more information.)

As you edit at all of these levels, you will usually make significant revisions to the content and wording of your paper. Keep an eye out for patterns of error; knowing what kinds of problems you tend to have will be helpful, especially if you are editing a large document like a thesis or dissertation. Once you have identified a pattern, you can develop techniques for spotting and correcting future instances of that pattern. For example, if you notice that you often discuss several distinct topics in each paragraph, you can go through your paper and underline the key words in each paragraph, then break the paragraphs up so that each one focuses on just one main idea.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation. You should proofread only after you have finished all of your other editing revisions.

Why proofread? It’s the content that really matters, right?

Content is important. But like it or not, the way a paper looks affects the way others judge it. When you’ve worked hard to develop and present your ideas, you don’t want careless errors distracting your reader from what you have to say. It’s worth paying attention to the details that help you to make a good impression.

Most people devote only a few minutes to proofreading, hoping to catch any glaring errors that jump out from the page. But a quick and cursory reading, especially after you’ve been working long and hard on a paper, usually misses a lot. It’s better to work with a definite plan that helps you to search systematically for specific kinds of errors.

Sure, this takes a little extra time, but it pays off in the end. If you know that you have an effective way to catch errors when the paper is almost finished, you can worry less about editing while you are writing your first drafts. This makes the entire writing proccess more efficient.

Try to keep the editing and proofreading processes separate. When you are editing an early draft, you don’t want to be bothered with thinking about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you’re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

The proofreading process

You probably already use some of the strategies discussed below. Experiment with different tactics until you find a system that works well for you. The important thing is to make the process systematic and focused so that you catch as many errors as possible in the least amount of time.

• Don’t rely entirely on spelling checkers. These can be useful tools but they are far from foolproof. Spell checkers have a limited dictionary, so some words that show up as misspelled may really just not be in their memory. In addition, spell checkers will not catch misspellings that form another valid word. For example, if you type “your” instead of “you’re,” “to” instead of “too,” or “there” instead of “their,” the spell checker won’t catch the error.
• Grammar checkers can be even more problematic. These programs work with a limited number of rules, so they can’t identify every error and often make mistakes. They also fail to give thorough explanations to help you understand why a sentence should be revised. You may want to use a grammar checker to help you identify potential run-on sentences or too-frequent use of the passive voice, but you need to be able to evaluate the feedback it provides.
• Proofread for only one kind of error at a time. If you try to identify and revise too many things at once, you risk losing focus, and your proofreading will be less effective. It’s easier to catch grammar errors if you aren’t checking punctuation and spelling at the same time. In addition, some of the techniques that work well for spotting one kind of mistake won’t catch others.
• Read slow, and read every word. Try reading out loud , which forces you to say each word and also lets you hear how the words sound together. When you read silently or too quickly, you may skip over errors or make unconscious corrections.
• Separate the text into individual sentences. This is another technique to help you to read every sentence carefully. Simply press the return key after every period so that every line begins a new sentence. Then read each sentence separately, looking for grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors. If you’re working with a printed copy, try using an opaque object like a ruler or a piece of paper to isolate the line you’re working on.
• Circle every punctuation mark. This forces you to look at each one. As you circle, ask yourself if the punctuation is correct.
• Read the paper backwards. This technique is helpful for checking spelling. Start with the last word on the last page and work your way back to the beginning, reading each word separately. Because content, punctuation, and grammar won’t make any sense, your focus will be entirely on the spelling of each word. You can also read backwards sentence by sentence to check grammar; this will help you avoid becoming distracted by content issues.
• Proofreading is a learning process. You’re not just looking for errors that you recognize; you’re also learning to recognize and correct new errors. This is where handbooks and dictionaries come in. Keep the ones you find helpful close at hand as you proofread.
• Ignorance may be bliss, but it won’t make you a better proofreader. You’ll often find things that don’t seem quite right to you, but you may not be quite sure what’s wrong either. A word looks like it might be misspelled, but the spell checker didn’t catch it. You think you need a comma between two words, but you’re not sure why. Should you use “that” instead of “which”? If you’re not sure about something, look it up.
• The proofreading process becomes more efficient as you develop and practice a systematic strategy. You’ll learn to identify the specific areas of your own writing that need careful attention, and knowing that you have a sound method for finding errors will help you to focus more on developing your ideas while you are drafting the paper.

Think you’ve got it?

Then give it a try, if you haven’t already! This handout contains seven errors our proofreader should have caught: three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors. Try to find them, and then check a version of this page with the errors marked in red to see if you’re a proofreading star.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Especially for non-native speakers of English:

Ascher, Allen. 2006. Think About Editing: An ESL Guide for the Harbrace Handbooks . Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Lane, Janet, and Ellen Lange. 2012. Writing Clearly: Grammar for Editing , 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle.

For everyone:

Einsohn, Amy. 2011. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications , 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 2006. Revising Prose , 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Tarshis, Barry. 1998. How to Be Your Own Best Editor: The Toolkit for Everyone Who Writes . New York: Three Rivers Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Home / Guides / Writing Guides / Writing Tips / How to Proofread a Paper

How to Proofread a Paper

There are five steps to the writing process— prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publishing. After writing your paper, there are two whole steps you need to do before turning it in. That’s right—revising your essay takes just as many steps as writing it in the first place.

Step 1: Revising—The Big Picture

As you can see, revising is step 3, or the first thing you should do after writing your essay. Revising does not mean looking at spelling or grammar; that comes with the next step, editing. Rather, revising means looking at the paper as a whole and identifying (and correcting) to make the essay flow better.

• Organization

Read your essay with an eye for how it’s organized. For example, does it makes sense to talk about gathering ingredients for a ham sandwich in the last paragraph before the conclusion? Not really.

To identify bad organization, you have to know how you’ve organized your paper. You can organize your essay in many different ways, some of which include:

• Chronology (progression through time)
• Logic (what makes the most sense to talk about first, second, and so on)
• Topic (group body paragraphs so that the topic stays the same until you’re ready to move on)

The decision about how to organize the paper should be made in step 1 of the writing process, during prewriting. Outlines are helpful for ensuring that you write the essay in an organized way. You may find when you revise the essay that the organization on the outline had some gaps in logic or chronology. That’s ok—this is the time to move paragraphs around!

• Making Sentences Flow

A step below organization is checking for flow. Look at each individual paragraph and ensure that the sentences string together in a rhythm that can easily be followed. In other words, you want the reader to be able to move easily through the writing without having to pause to figure out what you were trying to say.

An easy way to fix this problem is transition words . There are many, many words that help sentences connect to one another. Use words such as:

• In other words

There are tons more, but the idea is that you use these terms when you want to connect the idea of one sentence to the preceding sentence, whether it agrees or not.

Example: Transition Word of Agreement

I jogged to the store to catch up with my friend, who I’d spied driving down the road. Strangely enough , she didn’t turn the car off when she went inside.

Example: Transition Word of Disagreement

My dog sat languishing in the sun to warm up after being in the cold air conditioning. Be that as it may, I don’t like him to get too hot, so I brought him back inside.

• Making Quotes and Examples Flow

Another way to make sure your essay flows well is to ensure that every quote, paraphrase, summary, or example is well introduced and explained. When you fail to do this, it makes the reader pause.

If you tell your reader who says it, then follow the quote with an analysis of the quote and why you used it, the reader is able to keep up a good rhythm. That’s your goal.

• Introduction of quote/paraphrase (top bread)
• The quote/paraphrase itself (meat or sandwich filling)
• Analysis/explanation (bottom bread)

This strategy will ensure that your readers are clued in to each quote and can read at a steady pace.

Example: Quotation Sandwich

In his article on salads, Sam Sifton of the New York Times says, “[Julia’s] recipe for simple vinaigrette may anyway change your life for the better, forever.” Vinaigrettes may be known for lacking the creaminess that traditional salad dressing has, but Sifton pushes us to give them another look.

*Referenced article is linked here .

Step 2: Editing—The Details

When you get to the fourth step of the writing process, editing, you’re in for some fine tuning. This step ensures that your writing is correct and easier to read.

• Basic Paper Formatting

With any essay that you’re turning in for a grade, there should be some sort of format you follow. The most common formats for students are MLA format and APA format , but teachers can add their own rules. Pay attention to what is required and check for this formatting once your revising is done. Look at example pages to make sure you’ve got it right. Do you have one-inch margins? Size 12 font? Is your heading in the correct place? And so on.

• Checking for Slang

Although some slang might be ok in essay in order for your voice to shine through, most of the time, formal writing is required. Unless your teacher tells you that slang is ok, avoid using words like “ain’t” or “man” or whatever is popular online or at school these days.

Read through your essay and look for these words. You may find it helpful to have someone else read through it, or to read it out loud yourself. When you find slang words, replace them with formal terms.

One of the most important things to look for when you’re editing your paper is proper grammar. While there are many grammar rules, here are a few major ones to make sure you’ve got it right:

• Subject-verb agreement
• Verb tense consistency
• Plural agreement
• Pronoun agreement

It might be helpful to review grammar rules from previous years of study to ensure that you’re getting it right. You can also submit your essay to a tutor for their help in identifying incorrect grammar.

• Punctuation

Finally, one of the most basic and important parts of an essay is ensuring punctuation is correct. This means you’re looking at commas, periods, semicolons, colons, apostrophes, dashes, quotation marks, and so on. You’re looking both for missing and incorrectly placed punctuation. Commas can be quite complex, but here’s a quick snapshot of some of the most pertinent comma rules:

• Comma before a coordinating conjunction
• Comma after an introductory phrase
• Comma before a quote or after it, depending on its location in the sentence
• Comma in a series of items

Again, it might be helpful to look at basic punctuation rules before reviewing your essay. It’s also helpful to have someone else, like a tutor, look over the essay to catch mistakes you missed.

During the revising and editing steps of the writing process, there certainly is a lot to do. But don’t let that overwhelm you. Take it one step at a time. Ignore comma errors while revising; then forget about organization when you’re hunting for missing periods. In the end, your polished essay will likely be well rewarded.

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Science Editor

• A Publication of the Council of Science Editors

Understanding the Importance of Copyediting in Peer-Reviewed Manuscripts

Copyediting is a fundamental part of the publication process. It can be performed before a manuscript is submitted for peer review or afterwards. The relationship between copyediting and the submission outcome (i.e., acceptance to a journal or conference) is not well understood. To discern the value of copyediting in relation to the review process, I examined peer reviews of manuscripts submitted to a large scholarly conference and surveyed the frequency of terms or phrases in reviewer comments that were associated with copyediting (e.g., “poorly written,” “wordy,” “typo”). I also sought to determine whether the frequency of positive, neutral/unknown, or negative copyediting terminology was correlated with submission outcome (reject and different types of accept).

Not all researchers are gifted in writing as well as their fields of expertise. Thus, copy editors are sometimes hired to refine a manuscript prior to its submission for peer review. Alternately, some researchers will copyedit their papers themselves. Various scholarly journals also employ copy editors to review and edit articles prior to publication; in this case, copyediting takes place after peer review has been completed and an acceptance decision has been rendered. What is the purpose of the copyediting process? The Society for Editors and Proofreaders states “the aim of copy-editing is to ensure that whatever appears in public is accurate, easy to follow, fit for purpose and free of error, omission, inconsistency and repetition.” 1 Among the various types of copyediting is substantive, or content, copyediting whereby a copy editor is concerned with the overall structure, organization, and presentation of the ideas in a document. A copy editor may also be responsible for ensuring proper grammar and usage—this includes (and is not limited to) establishing consistency in terminology and abbreviations, optimizing word choice, and reducing ambiguity. The mechanical/proofreading aspect of copyediting comprises the review of punctuation, spelling, and labeling, and it may include the correction of typographical errors. Finally, a copy editor may review citations and cross-references and also fact-check when appropriate.

Some previous studies have analyzed the impact of copyediting on articles and papers. Vultee 2 studied how editing may affect audience perception of news articles and found that editing had a significant positive effect. Copyedited articles were rated higher in terms of impressions of professionalism, organization, writing, and value. 2,3 Wates and Campbell 4 examined the copyediting function using author versus publisher versions of articles and tracked the changes that occurred between the initial and final versions. They found that 42.7% (n = 47) of the changes were related to incorrect or missing references; 34.5% (n = 38) were typographical, grammatical, or stylistic; 13.6% (n = 15) regarded missing data; 5.5% (n = 6) were semantic; and 3.6% (n = 4) aligned the articles with journal-specific conventions. 4,5 Overall, Wates and Campbell 4 assessed that copyediting was an important function and it yielded greater article accuracy and integrity.

In the case of peer review, reviewers’ perceptions of journal and conference submissions may be negatively affected by a lack of thorough copyediting; or, their perceptions may be elevated if careful copyediting has been performed. This article describes a study of the relationship between copyediting comments by reviewers and the eventual outcome of submissions under peer review.

The dataset used for this study comprised a large set of peer reviews of scientific papers from a popular computer science conference. The reviews were accessed from OpenReview.net, a website containing publicly available papers and reviews from many scientific conferences and journals (mainly in the computer/information science domain). 9 In an effort to promote openness in scientific communication, OpenReview is open access and open source, and it uses a cloud-based web interface and database to store manuscripts and reviews. 9 This study sourced 2,757 reviews of 913 submissions to the 6th International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2018); this conference is dedicated to advancements in the deep learning branch of artificial intelligence. 10 All submissions had at least three reviews, and a small number (n = 18) had four reviews.

To detect whether a reviewer had made a reference to copyediting, I first consulted various sources that define the scope of a copy editor and subgenres of copyediting. 6–8 I then compiled a list of 163 terms and phrases that encompass the various duties of a copy editor (or the concepts that one is concerned with when copyediting his/her own paper). These terms and phrases have a positive, negative, or neutral/unknown tone associated with them, and I grouped them as such. For example, a reviewer who uses the phrase “is clearly written” is probably complimenting the author (i.e., positive tone). An example of a review comment with a negative tone is the word “reorganize”; this would most likely not be used unless the reviewer was requesting that the author change the structure of the paper to improve it. Lastly, if a term such as “consistency” is noted in a review, it is unclear if this is a positive or negative statement without reading the review itself, so this would be counted under the “neutral/unknown” category. In addition to the tone categories, I further grouped the terminology into categories per type of editing and subtype (e.g., “substantive/content” → “accuracy”; see Appendix 1).

To ensure that the terms and phrases were not dually counted, each term or phrase was unique and not a fragment of a larger phrase. For example, the word “clear” could not be included (by itself) because the “clear” count would include all instances of “not clear” and “clear” combined. It was essential that the positive and negative terms did not overlap. The use of longer and more specific phrases (i.e., “is clearly presented” versus “not clearly presented”) allowed for the results to be interpreted more accurately. See Appendix 1 for a complete list of terms/phrases and editing categories.

Text-mining methods were applied to the OpenReview application programming interface to obtain the number of occurrences of terms and phrases from the predetermined list (Appendix 1) per review and the final paper outcome tied to the review: accept as oral presentation (2.5% of submissions; n = 23), accept as poster (34.3%; n = 313), invite to workshop (9.8%; n = 89), and reject (53.5%; n = 488). 11  To increase the hit rate, all terms were lowercased and all punctuation and hyphenation surrounding the terms were removed (e.g., “well-polished” became “well polished”).

Across the review set, 10,111 instances of copyediting terms or phrases from the predetermined list were identified; of those identified, 666 instances were positive, 2,564 were negative, and 6,881 were neutral/unknown in their nature. In addition, 83.4% of peer reviews contained one or more of the terms/phrases: 21.6% contained positive, 46.6% contained negative, and 70.3% contained neutral/unknown. Statistical analysis of these instances and their relationship to the outcomes of the review process are detailed below.

Most Frequent Copyediting Notations

The copyediting terms and phrases that appeared most frequently in the ICLR 2018 peer reviews (with 100 or more occurrences across the full dataset) are listed in order of descending frequency in Table 1.

These are elements that reviewers appeared to focus on, and it may be useful for authors to consider and review how they are handling these components and concepts before they submit their manuscripts for review. By tackling potential copyediting issues in advance, authors may save reviewers time and effort that they would otherwise spend identifying copyedit-related errors and allow reviewers to focus more on manuscript content.

Relationship Between Tone of Copyediting Terminology and Submission Outcomes

I also analyzed the relationship between the tone of terminology used in reviews and the outcome of the review process. Figure 1 displays the average occurrence of positive, negative, or neutral/unknown copyediting terminology across all four submission outcomes.

To have a manuscript accepted to ICLR 2018 as an oral presentation is the most desirable outcome, but it only applied to the top 2.5% of submissions. Interestingly, submissions with the highest frequency of positive copyediting terminology (0.681 instances per review) and the lowest frequency of negative terminology (0.406 instances per review) were those accepted as oral presentations. Conversely, manuscripts that had the lowest frequency of positive copyediting terminology (0.199 instances per review) were those that were rejected. As may be expected, the use of neutral/unknown terminology was most common and also largely unchanged across the four outcomes. The standard error of the mean (denoted by the error bars in Figure 1) was higher for the neutral/unknown tone category, as compared with the positive and negative groups; reviewer comments belonging to the neutral/unknown group may have ultimately been positive or negative in nature, which is a possible explanation for the increased variance observed in this group.

A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed using SPSS; testing reported statistically significant differences in terminology tone per submission outcome ( F [9, 6695] = 5.003, P < 0.001, Wilks’ Λ = 0.984, η p 2 = 0.005). After Bonferroni correction, statistical significance could be accepted at P < 0.017. Specifically, there was statistical significance for the positive terminology group ( P < 0.001) but not for the negative group ( P = 0.028) or the neutral/unknown group ( P = 0.962). Tukey HSD post-hoc tests applied to the counts in the positive group revealed significant differences in the occurrence of positive terminology between the outcomes of accept as an oral presentation (0.406 instances per review) and reject (0.199 instances per review), as well as between the accept as a poster presentation (0.302 instances per review) and reject (0.199 instances per review).

Summary of Results

This study demonstrated that terminology and phrases associated with copyediting appeared with regular frequency in peer reviews. In fact, 83.4% of peer reviews from ICLR 2018 contained one or more terms/phrases from the predetermined list: 21.6% contained positive items, 46.6% contained negative, and 70.3% contained neutral/unknown. Table 1 shows the terms and phrases (from the predetermined list) that appeared most often. Submissions that were accepted as oral presentations (the most desirable outcome) had the highest frequency per review of positive terms/phrases and the lowest frequency of negative terms/phrases; rejected submissions had the lowest frequency of positive terms/phrases (see Figure 1).

Conclusions

This study examined copyediting terms and phrases occurring in peer review comments and their relationship to the outcomes of the review process. There appeared to be trends tied to negative and positive copyediting terminology and the decision for a manuscript, with some statistically significant values. It is possible that these values achieved statistical significance because of the large sample size. Further research across additional peer review datasets could help establish whether these findings are more broadly generalizable. Future studies may benefit from a narrower set of terminology, including the use of fewer neutral/unknown terms or an exclusion of this “tone” altogether.

Peer reviewers commented most often about clarity, writing, word choice, exposition, figures/tables/appendices, labels, references, and typos/punctuation. Presumably, it would be beneficial to invest more time in polishing these aspects of a scientific article. Research content is fundamental to a manuscript’s consideration for acceptance to a conference or journal; still, acceptance may be boosted with careful copyediting. The fewer copyediting issues there are in a paper, the less time and effort reviewers will need to spend pointing these out—a win-win situation for everyone involved in the review process.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Ryen White for his assistance with the initial text mining for this project and his statistical test recommendations.

  References

• Society for Editors and Proofreaders. FAQs: What is copy-editing? [accessed 2018 Nov 26]. https://www.sfep.org.uk/about/faqs/what-is-copy-editing /.
• Vultee F. Audience perceptions of editing quality: Assessing traditional news routines in the digital age. Digital Journalism. 2015;3(6):832–849. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.995938.
• Stroud NJ. Study shows the value of copyediting. American Press Institute. March 3, 2015. [accessed 2018 Nov 26]. https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/research-review/the-value-of-copy-editing .
• Wates E, Campbell R. Author’s version vs. publisher’s version: an analysis of the copy‐editing function. Learned Publishing. 2007;20(2):121–129. https://doi.org/10.1087/174148507X185090.
• Davis P. Copy Editing and Open Access Repositories. The Scholarly Kitchen. June 1, 2011. [accessed 2018 November 26]. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/06/01/copyediting-and-open-access-repositories .
• Reeder E. Three Types of Editors: Developmental Editors, Copyeditors, and Substantive Editors. New York, NY: Editorial Freelancers Association; 2016.
• Einsohn A. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, with Exercises and Answer Keys. Berkeley, CA: University of California; 2011.
• Stainton EM. The Fine Art of Copyediting. New York, NY: Columbia University Press; 2002.
• OpenReview. Amherst (MA): Information Extraction and Synthesis Laboratory, College of Information and Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst. [date unknown]–[accessed 2019 Jan 29]. https://openreview.net .
• International Conference on Learning Representations. 2013–2019. [accessed 2019 Feb 12]. https://iclr.cc /.
• OpenReview Python API. OpenReview API Documentation. OpenReview Team Revision bac6adf3; 2018. [accessed 2019 Jan 29]. https://openreview-py.readthedocs.io/en/latest /.

Resa Roth is a Quality Systems Specialist with Bio-Rad Laboratories in Woodinville, Washington.

Appendix 1 is available for download here: https://www.csescienceeditor.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Appendix-1.pdf .

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The Dos and Don'ts of Essay Editing and Proofreading

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Master the art of essay editing and proofreading with our essential dos and don'ts guide.

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This solution addresses the common challenge of ensuring the quality and accuracy of written work through effective essay editing and proofreading. Many individuals struggle with identifying and correcting errors in their essays, leading to issues such as unclear communication, grammatical mistakes, and inconsistencies in writing style. By providing a comprehensive guide to the dos and don'ts of essay editing and proofreading, this solution aims to equip writers with the knowledge and techniques needed to enhance the clarity, coherence, and overall quality of their essays.

Through practical tips and insights, writers can learn how to approach the editing and proofreading process systematically, identifying common mistakes and applying strategies to address them effectively. By mastering the art of essay editing and proofreading, writers can ensure that their written work meets high standards of excellence, making a positive impression on readers and achieving their communication goals with confidence.

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Our solution addresses the critical need for effective essay editing and proofreading techniques to ensure the quality and clarity of written content. Many individuals encounter challenges in identifying and rectifying errors in their essays, resulting in unclear communication and grammatical inconsistencies. 

Through a comprehensive guide outlining the dos and don'ts of essay editing and proofreading, we aim to empower writers with the knowledge and strategies necessary to enhance the coherence and accuracy of their essays. 

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The solution of providing advice on good essay editing and proofreading processes can aid Indigenous communities by giving them access to information and tools for improving their written communication skills. Many Indigenous people may encounter barriers to getting adequate education or be disadvantaged within school systems, resulting in deficiencies in academic abilities such as writing. 

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Obituaries | Obituary: St. Paul author and historian Judy…

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Obituaries | Obituary: St. Paul author and historian Judy Yaeger Jones believed in ‘women and their rights’

If not for Judy Yaeger Jones, the accomplishments of Marcenia “Toni” Stone , the first Black woman to play in a men’s professional baseball league, might have been overlooked.

Jones learned about Stone in 1988 when she read a brief entry in the book “Contributions of Black Women to America.”

Jones, a historian and author, immediately wanted to know more about the St. Paul baseball player who made sports history in 1953 when she signed a seasonal contract with the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro American League.

Jones, founder of Women’s History Month Inc., and president of Herstory Unlimited, a consulting firm in multi-cultural women’s history, researched Stone’s life and collected information about Stone for an article that appeared in the Minnesota Women’s Press.

The Great American History Theatre in St. Paul commemorated Stone’s story in a world premiere production, “Tomboy Stone,” in 1997, and the baseball field at the Dunning Sports Complex next to Central High School was named Toni Stone Stadium that same year.

Jones, of St. Paul, died Sunday of complications related to a chronic illness at the Augustana Health Care Center in Apple Valley. She was 82.

Earlier: Given terminal diagnosis, Judy Yaeger Jones had a last request: to ride a Harley .

“She was always a feminist,” said Angela Jones Flanaghan, one of Jones’ four daughters. “She always believed in women and their rights.”

Shining a light

Jones helped shine a light on Stone’s accomplishments, said Maria Bartlow, Stone’s niece. “They named the baseball stadium after her, and that was really an achievement,” she said. “She would have been overlooked if not for Judy.”

Jones and Stone became good friends over the years, Bartlow said, and Jones helped persuade Stone to share her story publicly .

“Judy won her over by talking to her and getting her out (to Minnesota) to talk to more people,” Bartlow said. “My aunt was a little shy, and Judy helped her out to talk to people, especially schoolkids, about doing certain things.”

Jones also was instrumental in providing the curriculum for St. Paul Public Schools’ first celebrations of Black History Month and Women’s History Week in 1982, Flanaghan said.

Jones saw the need for programs commemorating both, and she approached the principal at her daughters’ elementary school, according to a story about Jones published in the Minnesota Women’s Press in 1986.

“When the principal turned down the idea, Jones had her cause,” the article states. “She brought her case before the principal’s supervisor in the school district and won the right to offer the programs.”

In 1986, Jones founded Minnesota Women’s History Month, a nonprofit organization that promotes the celebration of women’s contributions to local and regional history.

She also founded her own consulting firm, Herstory Unlimited, which offered services such as feminist research, the compilation of oral and group “herstories,” and presentations dramatizing famous women of history and their lives.

The Minnesota Department of Education hired Herstory Unlimited to conduct workshops for school teachers and administrators on incorporating women’s history into lessons, Flanaghan said.

“She was very opinionated, and when she had her mind set on something, she went for it,” she said. “She believed in equity – that everyone should have equal rights and fair opportunities. She would always ask, ‘Why is there so much history and not herstory?’ That was always her favorite line.”

“Women’s history should be all year round,” Jones told the Pioneer Press in an interview last year .

Political activism

Jones’ political activism led her to join Women Against Military Madness and other groups. She was arrested numerous times while engaging in civil disobedience, including demonstrations against the Vietnam War, Flanaghan said.

Jones never gave up teaching people about women’s history, Flanaghan said. She gave her last presentation on women’s history on March 20, just a few weeks before she died, at the Augustana Health Care Center.

“I brought all of her posters over so they could be displayed,” Flanaghan said. “She loved sharing those stories.”

Jones was honored last year by the St. Paul City Council for her numerous contributions to the community over the years, including writing the book “Celebrating 10: 1973-1983,” which documented the founding members of the DFL Feminist Caucus.

Jones also wrote a book about a deaf American poet called “Sweet Bells Jangled: Laura Redden Searing, A Deaf Poet Restored.”

Judy Yaeger grew up in St. Paul and graduated from Central High School in 1959. In 1961, she married Robert Jones, whom she had met working at West Publishing Co.; he worked in the press room, and she was a proofreader, Flanaghan said.

Yaeger Jones graduated summa cum laude in 1986 from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in elective science.

In addition to Flanaghan, Jones is survived by her daughters, Debra Emery, Sheila Jones and Shonagh Jones; nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

A celebration of Jones’ life will be held at 1 p.m. May 10 at the Cremation Society of Minnesota in St. Paul, with visitation an hour prior to the service.

More in Obituaries

Local News | Modest-living Minneapolis welder leaves nearly $1 million to Gillette Children’s hospital in St. Paul

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Title: jamba: a hybrid transformer-mamba language model.

Abstract: We present Jamba, a new base large language model based on a novel hybrid Transformer-Mamba mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture. Specifically, Jamba interleaves blocks of Transformer and Mamba layers, enjoying the benefits of both model families. MoE is added in some of these layers to increase model capacity while keeping active parameter usage manageable. This flexible architecture allows resource- and objective-specific configurations. In the particular configuration we have implemented, we end up with a powerful model that fits in a single 80GB GPU. Built at large scale, Jamba provides high throughput and small memory footprint compared to vanilla Transformers, and at the same time state-of-the-art performance on standard language model benchmarks and long-context evaluations. Remarkably, the model presents strong results for up to 256K tokens context length. We study various architectural decisions, such as how to combine Transformer and Mamba layers, and how to mix experts, and show that some of them are crucial in large scale modeling. We also describe several interesting properties of these architectures which the training and evaluation of Jamba have revealed, and plan to release checkpoints from various ablation runs, to encourage further exploration of this novel architecture. We make the weights of our implementation of Jamba publicly available under a permissive license.

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