All You Need to Know About Dissertation Proofreading

Being a doctoral student must have taught you various important lessons about life like why time management is so important and why do they say ‘books are the best friends of human’. But most importantly, it has taught you about the most fundamental human nature, i.e. to err. Wait! I was not talking about your decision to pursue your doctoral studies, for in the end you’re bound to feel gratified about that same decision. No, I was definitely not questioning your decision, my point here is way too limited to the point of usual human errors or rather the typical scholar errors.

It is very common and entirely acceptable to make minor language mistakes while performing some writing task. However, it isn’t so readily acceptable to submit a final year project with such flaws. Moreover, no person in his right mind would let go off those precious marks, for which he had toiled for several weeks, just because some trivial errors; this is where the concept of proofreading emerged.

What is dissertation proofreading?

Dissertation proofreading is nothing but the review of the overall paper with the objective to give it a quality-check. Many registrants take proofreading as a simple spell and grammar check process. However,  the truth is far from it. The process of proofreading does include a thorough elimination of the basic typos, but not limited to that. Proofreading also involves assessment of the flow of the paper, its structure and styling, consistency, etc.

Though the scope of proofreading is wider than the common spell-check, still it is much lesser than that of dissertation editing. The task of a proofreader is to mark the mistakes using specific symbols, whereas, an editor has to perform still a more vigorous task. Editing involves the correction of the errors found during the proofreading phase. After the amelioration, the editor again reviews the edited paper to assess its readability and integrity. So, it is important to understand that proofreading and editing are not two phases of a single imbricated process.

How to do it?

Coming back to the proofreading, it is highly recommended to let someone else perform the task. It has been proved time and again that when the author tries to proofread his work, errors are bound to get overlooked. The reason is that often writers are too close to their work, making them biased about it; this creates a tendency of overpassing the errors which any other pair of eyes would have found very obvious. So yes, ask a friend or any acquaintance, who you believe could be good for the task, to do the proofreading of your paper. You can always seek help from the dissertation writing services if you could not find anyone fit for the feat.

However, generally, the online sites that offer dissertation help charges a fortune for their services, and if your bank account does not allow you the luxury and you are forced to do the task yourself, make sure you separate yourself from your paper for a considerable amount of time. Give yourself some time to detach yourself from the work so that you may frame an unbiased set of mind, which is the essence of effectual proofreading.

While performing the operation, make sure to use the dictionary; do never overestimate yourself when it comes to complicated words. It is also advised to check your work by reading it backward, i.e. Analyze the last paragraph first, slowly moving towards the first one, so that you can evaluate the flow of the matter.

For best results never overlap the tasks of editing and proofreading, use proper proofreading symbols to give an edge of expertise to your work. It is imperative to proofread a document at least twice; though some may consider it a waste of time, ofttimes it is found that even after the editing many mistakes prevail. Furthermore, it is also imperative to ensure that the changes made during the editing phase do not disturb the direction and objective of the paper.