6 steps to successful dissertation proofreading

Proofreading of such a serious document like dissertation may seem quite easy especially in comparison with writing process and information research. Unfortunately, a lot of students are inattentive to dissertation proofreading which leads them to embarrassment in the future. The point is that in order to proofread a dissertation one should arm himself with patience and concentration. It is especially hard to have patience due to the length that such projects usually have. Unlike such projects like essays, term papers or letters, proofreading a dissertation usually cannot be completed in one sitting. The proofreader who is trying to proofread a dissertation which has too many pages may end up loosing the required concentration. Taking into consideration everything mentioned above, here are 6 steps for successful dissertation proofreading.

  1. Divide your project into 20-minute fragments.

  2. If you do so, you will be able to maintain concentration. When the time is up, it is recommended to take a break and have rest.

  3. Don’t try to beat all the records trying to read as many pages as it is possible.

  4. Many pages require a lot of time to spend on reading. Thus, you stand a good chance to get bored and inattentive. As the result, you miss a huge number of mistakes.

  5. Read your dissertation slowly and out loud.

  6. In order to check every grammatical and typographical element, it is recommended to read what you have written out loud so that your brain could detect the slightest errors.

  7. Print your paper if you can.

  8. Proofreading a dissertation is much easier on the printed page than on the screen.

  9. Proofread the same part of work several times.
  10. Proofreading a dissertation section more than once will help you to catch the errors you might not have noticed in the paper in one sitting.

  11. Never proofread and edit at the same time.

If you think critically about the paper you have accomplished and how this paper could be reworded, this means that you are editing your dissertation. It is not forbidden to proofread and edit at the same time. But the thing is that you won’t have an opportunity to notice grammatical and typographical mistakes if you are thinking about the content.

Proofreading requires huge attention to every single detail in the text and good awareness of punctuation, formatting and grammar rules. Follow these 6 steps to improve your dissertation proofreading skills and be able to see all the errors on the page in order to make your paper error-free.

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