Imagine you come across a story premise on social media that grips you immediately. The plot is interesting, and the snippets are captivating. You can’t wait to read more. When the writer finally publishes the story, all your excitement immediately disappears when you notice spelling and grammatical errors in almost every sentence. Even if you try to ignore them, you can’t help but fix the errors in your mind. The joy of reading disappears.
Something similar happens to professors when they go over your essays and notice similar mistakes. That’s why you must proofread your papers. It doesn’t matter if you do it yourself or if you hire a custom writing help to check the paper for you. As long as you don’t forget this step, your essays will be top-notch.
“But it’s just a few spelling mistakes! No one will notice them.”
– Students who don’t proofread.
That’s where you’re wrong. Everyone notices them. That’s why it’s impossible to secure an A+ in the paper despite spending hours on research. Now, hiring an essay writing service to proofread your papers can be the easy way out. It’s better to rely on this method than not proofreading your essays at all. But if you want to improve your own writing skills and polish your essay to perfection, try to proofread the paper yourself. Here’s why attempting this task on your own is more beneficial in the long run –
1. Familiarizes you with your mistakes
If you want to hire someone else to proofread your work, then great! Of course, you can do that. But that won’t help you in the long run. After all, you must check your work yourself if you want to know the types of mistakes that you usually make.
For example, many students add an apostrophe in “it’s” even when they don’t mean “it is.” They don’t do this intentionally. But while writing their papers, the mistake occurs naturally because they’re in a hurry to complete the work. If you have a tendency to make similar mistakes, you need to fix the habit ASAP. The best way is to proofread your own papers. When you review your writing and come across such errors multiple times, you’ll become more conscious of them.
2. Provides an opportunity to fix structural issues
Structural inconsistencies can also lower your essay quality. You must be very careful about being consistent with line spacing, paragraph spacing, and indentation and justification rules. Generally, colleges and universities follow a standard structural format, such as –
- 1-inch margins on all sides
- Double spacing between lines
- Times New Roman 12pt font
The rules can vary depending on the referencing style that you follow. But whichever formatting you follow, ensure that you are consistent. It’s easy to make mistakes when you type your paper. However, when proofreading your paper, you can rectify them ASAP. Proper formatting makes it easier for readers to read through the paper. It demonstrates that you pay special attention to the small details. This will work in your favor to leave a good impression on your professors.
3. Ensures the meaning of sentences remains intact
Punctuation marks are an essential part of a sentence. A single error can change the entire meaning. Let’s check out a few examples of common punctuation errors:
Case I:
Correct use of punctuation – We aren’t going over to Sarah’s house tomorrow.
Incorrect use of punctuation – We aren’t going over to Sarah’s house tomorrow.
Case II:
Correct use of punctuation – Let’s say a prayer and eat, Grandma.
Incorrect use of punctuation – Let’s say a prayer and eat Grandma.
Case III:
Correct use of punctuation – She asked us to wait. Don’t disobey her.
Incorrect use of punctuation – She asked us to wait and not disobey her.
In Case I, the apostrophe after ‘are’ is incorrect. When contracting words, you must place the apostrophe after the first letter of the next word. This is meant to replace the second letter of the word. For example, ‘aren’t’ is the contracted version of ‘are not.’
In Case II, a misplaced comma completely changes the meaning. When used correctly, the sentence is addressed to Grandma. But in the incorrect version, you’re implicating cannibalism!
In Case III, you have to be careful when expanding contracted words. The speaker is the one who cautions the listener not to disobey. But by joining the sentences and incorrectly expanding the contracted word, it seems as if the person who asked them to wait told them not to disobey her.
Such mistakes are easily avoidable when you proofread your work properly. When you make an effort to pay attention to detail, it’s easier to write excellent-quality papers. Just be patient. Proofreading can be a time-consuming task, but it’s worth the time spent.
