[Bups-dis] Re: How do you proof read?

[Edward Grefenstette]

For the record, the method of recording myself reading the paper out  
– as for a presentation – and then watching it, worked quite well.  
While reading it I managed to catch some of the mistake a spell- 
checker wouldn't get (the usual an/and typo, missing words). And  
then, while listening to my "performance", the parts of the essay  
where the structure made a lot less sense in reality then it did in  
my mind, or the sentences which look good but don't really sound that  
good (read: sound clear) were much more apparent. For a 6000 paper,  
this took a total of an hour, but I think it was an hour well spent  
improving my paper.

I like Andrew's suggestion of scrapping entire sections of your essay  
and rewording them from scratch. I've done this for small segments  
before, but I think that if one did this for an entire paper, it  
would certainly be beneficial (although a rather large time investment).

- Ed.