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Mariam felt guilty and bowed her head in a plea for forgiveness. Looking at her, the
supervisor felt sorry and encouraged her that she could do better. The supervisor
decided to take her through the steps for editing and proofreading. He hoped that
these would help her to perform the activity effortlessly. This is how Mariam’s
FOR ONLINE READING ONLY
supervisor talked about editing and proofreading:

Mariam, your work is good in terms of content. However, it is full of grammatical,
typographical and spelling mistakes. In addition, the sentence and paragraph lengths
vary from chapter to chapter. Therefore, you are required to take time to edit and
proofread your thesis. You should also ask your peers to review it. Then, you will
resubmit it to me for further action. To make your task effortless, you will have to
observe the following steps:

Start by creating a checklist outlining important areas you will focus on while editing
your work. The checklist may include things like subject-verb agreement, spelling,
vocabulary choice, numbering styles, font size and style, figures, proper names and
the dialect (American English vs British English).

Then, arrange the areas based on priority. It will help you begin with the larger
problems, such as clarity and structure, and move to smaller ones. After that, start
editing your document, beginning with the largest problem. Then, move on to
the smallest problem. Remember, you must focus on one line at a time to avoid
distraction. For hard copies, you may use highlights or red pens to indicate areas
with problems and indicate the correction with another colour for printed works,
such as a blue-coloured pen.
Furthermore, revise and rewrite the document to produce a new, clear and coherent
version for proofreading.

Finally, proofread your document to correct grammar, spelling and punctuation
errors. Reading the document aloud can help you identify any lingering problems
that were left unattended during the editing.
These are the recommended stages. However, during the actual editing and
proofreading, you may discover that there are more sub-steps involved. The rule
of thumb is never to underestimate any problem in the document, as it may blur the
readability and understandability of the document.
All the best, I am looking forward to receiving a well-polished and error-free

document in a few days.

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