How to edit A Dissertation
HOW I PROOFREAD MY PHD THESIS - 250 pages | Essay Editing Tips
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today's video I'm means you talking
about how to proofread your own work now
this is probably one of the most crucial
aspects of writing anything any bit of
writing that you have to do as a student
or even just writing an email has to be
proof read and I actually have my pieces
here so this is my this is my thesis and
it is very thick as you can see it is I
think it's 200 and yeah 215 pages long
and I proof read this I'm also a
professional proof reader i proofread
freelance I have a small consultancy
business where I proofread and I help
you guys with getting into universities
and preparing for your viber pairing for
interviews writing CVS and all the links
all the information is down below I've
never really plugged it in a video but I
get requests every single day and that's
absolutely amazing my prices are you
depend on what it is that you are
requesting so if you're asking for
proofreading they're just kind of basic
just English proofreading then that's
obviously basically bit cheaper than
really academic proofreading where I
kind of change the sentences as well and
I recently proved in a poster proof of
cover letters and a few of you have got
into your PhD programs after I prove
read your letters if you guys want to
contact me and Commission me for any
editing or proofreading or anything and
then absolutely love that and my email
will be down below so you may not want
to hire a proofreader and that's totally
okay I wanted to give you my top I think
I have 11 points yes my top 11 points
for how to proofread your own work
before I get into the tips I just wanted
to say that make sure that you leave
time to proofread so if your work is due
in on Monday make sure that you've given
yourself at least three to four days to
actually proofread this process can be
very monotonous very boring very
tiresome cumbersome but it is I would
say one of the most important
parts of writing anything so he depends
on how long your work is something like
my thesis I I think I gave it about two
weeks of proof food because it's quite a
large bit so the first thing I do and
this is a very quick automatic thing is
just to run a spell check and grammar
check just from where taste sure that
your your settings are on the language
settings that you desire so obviously I
always choose UK English and and
annoyingly it always goes back to US
English American Spelling's and British
Spelling's for certain words are very
different
like S&Z for example internalized or
organized it's spelt very differently
and if you're submitting work in the UK
and it's written in some American
spending some English spelling and it's
not consistent that does look really
unfair my second tip that I really think
is underrated is to edit backwards so
don't start editing from the
introduction and go towards the end and
the conclusion start from the conclusion
and go up towards the beginning we tend
to read the beginning parts not all the
time and then what happens is the end
starts become a bit sloppy because by
the time you've gotten there you're
probably quite tired from reading this
essay a thousand times so start from the
back start right at the bottom edit from
there and go up towards the introduction
my set tip is to read out loud to
vocalize your word it's the number of
times the number of times I'm sitting
with someone I'm true to me while we're
helping someone out and I ask them to
read the sentence to me out loud and
they read it and then they say oh
there's a mistake
this is offs that I've asked them to
check it two or three times when I ask
them to read out loud it shows them
their mistake to try to give every
single word a purpose and say every
single word on purpose I think nobody
helps to ensure that your sentences
makes sense it's very easy to write
instances that don't really make sense
and since a few would necessarily say in
that structure so definitely sing out
loud and vocalizing your work gives you
a nice way of just checking that it
makes sense my fourth tip is to give you
a work to somebody else now this is
probably a tip that you've heard before
but definitely give you a work for
someone else it could be anyone
to be someone in that field it can be
anybody proofreading is less about the
content but more about the format and
the English and the structure and the
sentences and paragraphs so giving away
that someone else just allows them to
pick out mistakes that you may not have
seen yourself our brains are so used to
filling in the gaps I'm sure you guys
have seen those sentences where though
the letters are all jumbled up our
brains try to figure things out for us
to help us the fifth tip that I would
say is to print your work outs usually
print mine two pages on one so just to
save paper especially with this thesis
so with this thesis I actually printed
six pages on one my mistake is because
you know it's not possible other ways to
end up with something I can if you don't
walk around with but I printed them out
I printed out in different sections so I
did the method section and then I did
the introduction and the results etc and
I kind of edited it as I went along
bring it on paper means that you can
edit on the go so I used to edit on the
tube and I was on my way to University
or edit on a plane I was traveling
before you know during submission time
and or I would you know give that work
someone else to edit it kind of gives me
the flexibility to edits wherever also I
find that it's much easier to spot
mistakes when it's on paper on the
screen it's very easy to kind of just
skim over things it's also a nice way of
giving yourself a little break from a
computer screen you're not supposed to
look at a screen for too many hours in
the day and I think a lot of us do so
just by pressing it out it means that
you'll still be productive if still
getting some work done and but it just
means that you're off screen and you can
kind of just focus on this piece of
paper and sort of the sixth thing I do
generally is to look at sentence length
now if a sentence is more than I would
say two and a half lines I question it I
think especially when you're writing
information that's already quite heavy
in terms of content you don't want to
pack in too many points in one sentence
so what I would recommend you to do is
any sentence that's more than two and a
half or three lines on an on a word
document I would say to cut it in half
even if you feel like it's the same
point cut it in half it does make it
easy
to read where the sentences are shorter
longer sentences generally are quite
messy and are also not very concise
they're not to the points the seventh
tip I'd give is editing in bulk
now I sometimes noticed that there are
words that are misspelled or words that
are not capitalized but should be
capitalized like company names or names
of people or major three agents maybe
something that's just generally
capitalized some abbreviations have an
uppercase letter and a lowercase letter
and I noticed that we noticed that when
I first writing but I notice it later on
and imagine trying to go through a
thesis that long and copying and
changing every single word of that word
if you're gonna miss something so why
generally tend to do is select ctrl and
s so find a word I'll select the word
that I am looking for and then I would
save a place with and love with the
correct word there and I'll say replace
all so what that does is it replaces
every single word in the document that
is a mistake now this has been a
lifesaver for me and I used it so much
just genuinely think I even use it now
when I'm writing anything or when I'm
walking your work but I notice that
there's a work that has been not
capitalized or not spelled correctly I
just say to myself the chances are
they've spelt this incorrectly
throughout the thesis or throughout this
essay and I correct every single one
the a thing I do is check for
consistency you might be taught to write
with a certain font or some font size or
spacing in between you see I wanted a
spacing of 1.5 in between each line and
this helps the the examiner to write
kind of points or kind of feedback in
between a lot of the time when I
proofread your work I always ask you to
send me a link to either online an
online document that has formatting on
it or some sort of marks beam and I like
to just double check because otherwise
it you know every every University every
course has a different formatting
expectation so when I do that academic
proofreading which is pretty much for
all of you guys to I always check the
marks even kind of tell you oh you're
missing this out this needs to be
corrected you know work on this the nice
thing I do is check for common mistakes
so common words that are usually spelled
wrong like there and they are your and
you are it's and it's his effects and
effects it doesn't matter how great your
English is those words are just
misspelled sometimes I I commonly
misspelled weather and weather with a H
what I do is when I go through the when
I go through and proofread I just check
those words just to make sure that it's
okay and throughout the essay not just
in one place I really make sure to check
it properly because that is one mistake
that you do not want the test thing I do
is proofread every single version so
this is something that obviously I I
don't do when I proofing in your work
because I get the last version but for
you if you're proofreading your own work
makes sure that you proofread every
single version let's say you were to
rewrite a section or a paragraph
proofread the whole thing again make
sure it makes sense you've got nothing
to lose by proofreading 'taking you work
you only increase the probability that
you find the mistakes and you can
improve on them so I would say check as
many times as you can eat the only time
I say not to check is after it's printed
so when I printed this out so I printed
four of these each one cost about I
think was like 35 or 40 pounds
yeah very expensive when I printed this
out I refused to look at it because I
knew that as soon as I opened it up I
was going to find a mistake so and at
this point what this abound it's not
going to change and I'm just gonna think
about it so I would say there's a point
at which just accept there's no change
and just make sure that you've saved a
version of the original you say you keep
on saving as you go the last if I do is
I always check facts and that's
something that you should do diligently
check your facts let's make sure that
any figures that you use are correct
make sure that any numbers use you
quotes are correct
make sure your references are correct as
well the people the names of the authors
should be correct as well make sure your
abbreviations are correct make sure that
if you let's say you've done an
experiment and using the region make
sure that you've given them correct
information work looks sloppy when it's
incorrect when it's inaccurate I mean
it's not referenced what I tend to do
and I think this is very useful my do
this all the time
in your work because obviously I don't
know everything I don't know the names
of everything and so what I tend to do
is I will go on google and I'll just
search for the name so let's say it's a
law let's say for example Newton's law
for example and let's say I do not know
whether the N and the L should be
capitalized I just do it and I look on a
few papers a few published papers to see
what they have done if they've
capitalized it then I'll come fertilize
it if they haven't that I won't I know
that's going to be correct because
nature publications for example have
their own editor so if they're
professional editors have written it as
a capital then I know that it's going to
be present it's going to capitalized so
that's the end of the video I really
hope that you gain some insight on how I
proofread and how I recommend you guys
to prove for you don't get that
perfection is pretty much impossible no
matter how much I go through my work
there will be probably be a mistake at
the end of it especially something as
long as a thesis just be okay with 99%
perfection and don't forget to press the
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