Revise what you have written, following the guidelines below. Editing involves the checking for spelling mistakes, grammatical and punctuation oversights. Proofreading is the final step of the writing process. English grammar deal with a huge area and cannot be checked for everything separately.

Follow the Following Instructions

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Here are some guidelines to follow when editing:

1. Instructions: Have these been correctly followed
2. Content: Is the content relevant, accurate, and logically developed?
3. Format: Have you chosen the correct format for your writing
4. Paragraphs: Has the work been divided into relevant paragraphs?

5. Sentence Construction:

• Have you used full sentences?
• Is there a subject and a finite verb?
• Are the participles aided by auxiliary (helping) verbs?
• Have you avoided repetitive sentence structure?

6. Tense: Have you kept the same tense?

7. Concord: Are the nouns and verbs in agreement?

Check for Cliches

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8. Word choice/Diction:
Analyse every word carefully. Scan for:

Verbs

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• Verbs that could be replaced by stronger verbs
• Overuse of adjectives and adverbs
• Tautology, verbosity and clichés
• Slang

Use your Dictionary & Thesaurus

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Have you made use of dictionary and thesaurus skills?

Check your Spelling

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9. Spelling: Have you checked for careless and high-frequency errors?
10. Punctuation

• Does every sentence start with a capital and end with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark?
• Have you used a comma when a full stop was needed? (comma splice error)
• If possible, read your work aloud in order to ‘feel’ the need for the addition or omission of any punctuation marks.

Source: English Grammar: EBH Joubert
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