Some Basic Proofreading Tips - 1

Author: Kristen Stewart

When To Use That And Which

The general rule is either that or which can be used to introduce clauses attached to nouns that add crucial identifying pieces of information, and the latter is connected with the use of commas.

It all depends on the relative clause. A relative clause provides more information about the noun that it follows and begins with that, which (who, whose, when, where).

That is used when you want to stipulate some additional information. For example:

I bought a dog that I will take on walks.

The restrictive (identifying, defining) clause indicates that all the information in the sentence is essential

Which is used when you want to provide more or extra information, for example:

I bought a dog, which I will walk.

The comma is essential to the non-restrictive (or extra, information) clause as we already know the person has bought a dog, ‘which I will walk’ is extra information.

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Harvard Referencing a book

Harvard referencing a book in your reference list or bibliography can be tricky as you have to watch out for multiple authors, editors, editions and how much of the book you are using. The following information is required: author, initials. Date. Title of the book. (Edition, if required). Place of publication (this cannot be a country): Publishing House.

A book with one author should look like this:

Miller, A., 1949.Death of a Salesman.London:Penguin.

Books with two, three, or four authors should look like this:

Koelb, C., and Noakes, S., 1988. The Comparative Perspective on Literature: Approaches to Theory and Practice. London:Cornell.

Books with four or more authors should look like this:

Grace, B., et al., 1988. A History of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Et al.,is latin for ‘and others’.

Books that are edited require the name to have the letters ed. after it. For example:

Keene, E. ed., 1988. Natural language. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Who and Whom

Simply and grammatically speaking, who is the subject pronoun and whom is the object pronoun forms of the same word. Who corresponds to I, he, she, or they and replaces the subject of a verb. Whom refers to me, him, her, or them and replaces the object verb.

Yet there is some debate in Modern English over the use of whom, as many people accuse whom of being pedantic, furthermore many academics believe that the word is archaic and shall not survive. For example:

The man who I saw yesterday, is grammatically incorrect. The man is a subject and not an object

The man whom I saw yesterday, is grammatically correct, yet some would say, sounds pedantic.

The simple way to see if you need to use who or whom is to replace the who/whom with a subject pronoun and object pronoun. Let’s examine a few more examples:

Mrs Dalloway consulted a florist whom she met in London. (Object: him, her)

Who is that masked man? (Subject: he, she)

To whom it may concern. (Object: them)

Who lost their shoes? (Subject: he, she)

How to write in the third person

Written language or personal pronouns are presented in three ways: first, second, and third person perspectives. First person is where the speaker expresses his/her personal views ‘I ate an apple.’ Second person is where the speaker speaks to another ‘You ate an apple.’ Third person is where the speaker is speaking about another person ‘She ate an apple.’

To put it another way, the third person is used to describe the singular pronouns he, she, it or the plural they.

Writing in third person provides a writer a large degree of freedom, as it does not express a limited view as you get with ‘I’ and/or ‘you’. A third person view point expresses a detached view that the writer may or may not agree with, thus allowing a reader to know what the character is thinking, by using a narrator.

To write in the third person isn’t any harder than writing in first or second person, you just need to remember what perspective you are writing in and stick to it. The following would be incorrect in third person with one character:

She walked along the dark corridor and you turned the corner. This change from third to second person is confusing as could indicate that there are two people walking down the corridor.

The correct way to write in third person is:

She walked along the dark corridor and turned the corner.

Consistency is the key to correct third person writing.

Alternatives to using ‘said’

A piece of academic work should engage its reader, and a superfluous use of ‘said’ could turn a well-researched paper, into something stagnant and boring and could cost you marks during the examination process. It is important to understand that well written academic pieces use a variety of words, which are carefully selected. However, during the writing process, don’t worry about how many times you have used said. Finish a draft of your work, then go through it and change ‘said’ into another relevant word. Here are our alternatives to ‘said’ that you can use in your academic writing. But be sure you use them in the right context. If you’re not sure, use a dictionary!

Acknowledged

Announced

Answered

Disclosed

Justified

Confirmed

Indicated

Interjected

Marked

Reckoned

Repeated

Observed

Noted

Provoked

Understood

Shared

Published

Articulated

Argued

Specified

Offered

Asserted

Claimed

Advised

Admitted

Empathised

Explained

Exposed

Finished

Implied

Implored

Instructed

Interrogated

Quizzed

Quoted

Reckoned

Recounted

Related

Remarked

Remonstrated

Requested

Responded

Verified

Dissertation Proofreading – why is it vital?

Typically your social life is sacrificed in exchange for an agonising amount of time, energy, and late nights on your dissertation. It becomes the only thing you can talk about, the only thing you dream about, and you find yourself re-writing chapters in your head when you are food shopping. Dissertations can and will take over your life; it is the nature of the beast.

Dissertation Proofreading is an essential process, and you shouldn’t rely on friends and family to do this for you (unless, of course they are trained proofreaders!). The problem with friends

and family is they may not want to upset you, do not understand your argument, or even may not be that bothered about proofreading your dissertation properly.

Your brain and your eyes can only proofread to a certain extent. Sometimes you end up reading it the way that you intend for it to be read, and it is only when you read it back AFTER you submit your dissertation, the glaring errors pop out on the page. Without dissertation proofreading, you could cost yourself that all important mark.