Proofreading your Own Work

Experienced writers in academia whose native language is English may find it laborious to proofread their own work, particularly when a considerable amount of time has already been spent refining or improving the content of the paper. For non-native speakers of English, the challenge is even greater: unsure of what to look for when checking the final draft, they frequently overlook errors that negatively affect the overall quality of the paper. Hence this interactive workshop addresses the main points to be mindful of before submitting an article for peer review and provides practical ways to improve one's proofreading skills.

AIMS

On completion of this workshop, participants will:

• be aware of how proofreading differs from editing
• be able to apply simple strategies for proofreading academic work
• be able to more quickly and accurately spot and correct typos and writing errors
• recognise the importance of step-by-step revision
• know how to work systematically with checklists and concordances to minimise errors

TOPICS

• checking for spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors
• using academic concordances
• working with checklists
• observing the journal's instructions for authors
• optimising sentence/paragraph length

Duration: two-day seminar