Proofreading Checklist

Ideas and organization

☐ Somewhere in the first paragraph, I state my thesis in a simple, direct sentence.

☐ My thesis expresses an opinion rather than summarizes the story or states something that is simply factually true.

☐ The body of my essay consists of three or four reasons that “prove” my these or examples that support it.

☐ Every paragraph has a topic sentence which states the main idea of that paragraph. Everything in the paragraph relates to that topic sentence.

☐ The points are organized in a way that a reader can easily follow the argument.

Style

☐ Every sentence is clear and graceful.

☐ Most sentences have active verbs rather than “being” verbs, such as “is,” “was,” “were,” “are,” etc.

☐ My nouns are specific rather than vague or abstract. (“tree” is vague; “willow” is specific֓trouble” is abstract; the death of her daughter is specific)

Conventions and Usage

☐ Every word is spelled correctly

☐ Every sentence is complete (no fragments).

☐ I have no fused sentence or comma splices. I’ve changed run-on sentences with too many jumbled together ideas into simpler sentences.

☐ Possessive nouns have apostrophes. Conjunctions have apostrophes.

☐ Proper nouns are capitalized, and every sentence begins with a capital.

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