ClearTips: Edit yourself

Checklist

You should check the use and usefulness of each word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, and section. If you do not have time for such a task, at least check a few basic things.

• Check all spelling, hyphens, capitals, numbers, and important names and terms against your style sheet.
• Make a contents page to identify problems of organization and to help your readers.
• Underline and try to rectify long sentences, awkward sentences, passive verbs, and constructions that should be parallel but are not.
• Check that subjects and verbs agree in number.
• Check that all who and which clauses are correctly punctuated.
• Check that all introductory clauses beginning with an -ing word relate to what immediately follows.
• Check that pairs, series, and compound subjects and predicates are arranged from short to long, from simple to compound.
• Cut what is of little use.
• Proofread everything you send out. A list of proofreader's marks is under proofreader in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary.

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