List four things to look at when your proofreading?

Answer 1

# Incomplete sentences. Sounds silly and obvious, but it's important to make sure you've completed the thought. Even experienced writers occasionally forget an important word or two... or an unimportant one that still makes them look foolish. # Misspellings and homonym trouble. Any program with spell-check takes all the work out of correcting your spelling, but even the latest and greatest word processors can't always figure out when you typed "sealing" instead of "ceiling". [Look at the "question" here. That spell checker won't be able to tell the difference between "your" and "you're" in this application. The former appears in the "question" and the latter is the word that should actually be there.] # Insufficient or excessive punctuation. Too many commas in a single sentence can be distracting and draw out the sentence unnecessarily; it might be better to break a long involved sentence into smaller thoughts, connected with semicolons. Too few appropriately-placed punctuation marks turn an intelligent paper into a run-on muddle. Clarity is the first rule of punctuation! [As it happens, the "question" I'm answering is actually phrased as an imperative; it should have ended with a period or "full stop" rather than a question mark.] # Incoherence. In most cases, if the entire piece doesn't make sense, or if it does not logically progress from one sentence to the next, then it desperately needs work. Some fiction writers deliberately invoke discord in their stories, but, unless the writer's aim is to alienate the average reader, all the standard rules should apply to the proofreading.