Every student has a dream to make fewer grammatical errors in their texts. Moreover, the statistics show that grammar issues occur in 21% of cases among general writing errors. So, how to stay confident in your text when you don’t have much writing experience?
Simply remember: grammatical errors are one of the worst enemies of students, and it is OK to be part of this community. Especially when you need to write an essay on a certain subject, your level of English should be on the top. In this article, we explored ways to show you how to simplify the editing process and polish your text no matter how complex your subject is.
1. Always proofread your text.
Sometimes it is overwhelming to track all your grammatical flaws during writing. Therefore, we recommend revising your text after you finished it. Read each paragraph thoroughly and mention some unclarities, even if it is your own text.
For example, you can face one of the most repetitive grammatical issues – article usage. To clarify how to use articles during essay proofreading, consider this flowchart as a prompt.
2. Rely on your knowledge only.
Sure, it is good to use extra online sources to automatically check your text, but there is still no better invention than the human brain. Such English grammar checkers as Hemingway App, Ginger, or Grammarly can give you useful suggestions, but the author should revise text on clarity and grammatical flaws by themselves.
Only you can pay more attention to dangling modifiers, misplaced punctuation, and confusing pronouns for not to misguide your reader of what you want to say. For this purpose, you should always keep grammatical hints on your desk. This chart provided by the unique educational platform Prep Expert will help you to structure your revising process.
3. Manage your time.
Hurrying up while writing an essay is the fundamental problem of students who have lots of grammatical mistakes. Try to think about your text composition in advance to write neither fast nor too slow. This will help you to dive into the writing process fully and find fewer grammatical errors during revision.
Reducing distractions that take your minutes and then hours, such as social media content or entertaining sources, will help you concentrate on your text better. Set an hour or two for research, then thirty minutes for outlining, and an hour and a half for writing your first draft. The more concise your writing process is, the easier it will be to conduct a revision of grammatical flaws later on.
4. Ask a person you trust for a response.
There is nothing so valuable in writing and editing as a human factor. I f you can’t do proper revision by yourself, it is even better because you can ask for help more acknowledged person in English grammar. It doesn’t mean that you have no clue how to revise texts, but if you work as an editor for your own piece, there are more chances to be misguided.
Usually, young writers don’t consider such an important problem as an author’s “blindness.” This definition means that you’d rather omit mistakes in your own text than in someone else. So, try to get the assistance of your family member, classmate, or even your teacher to help you improve your essay.
5. Read your essay aloud.
Remember, that opuses in your essay could affect much more than your college results. The main purpose of grammatical error correction is to increase the ability to evaluate your own writing. Improve critical skills by reading your own text out loud. Avoid hurrying to be back to your text at least three hours after you finished it. Let it stay for a while, and you can give yourself a reward. Dedicate time to the most relaxing methods that work for you. It can be watching a favorite TV show, walking outside, or chatting with friends. Anything that helps you to distract from your essay.
Return to it after your brain restart. Read your essay to your friend or yourself – it doesn’t matter. Notice all parts that need grammatical corrections. And read once again backward.
Afterward
The only way to make fewer grammatical mistakes in your text is not to write at all. Not so effective method, isn’t it? Still, if you decided to polish your text on grammatical flaws, remember Murphy’s law. It means nobody’s text could be perfect enough.