Students! Why Proofreading is the Most Important Thing for Your Scholarship

Proofreading can Help To Improve any Writing Effort

I clearly see the impact of NOT proofreading in the courses I teach. Why are so many students so reluctant to grasp the importance and need for this simple idea? I welcome this guest post on the topic! While it focuses on scholarship essays, the techniques and tools here can help with the majority of writing assignments. – KW

Proofreading is often skipped by students when they write their academic papers. However, several minutes of saved time by skipping the check is not really worth the results because one grade can compromise several weeks of work. The importance of proofreading for getting a scholarship is paramount because if a member of the board finds mistakes in the application essay, the needed financial help is gone.

There are many things that one can miss in the scholarship essay. Given that it can break your success in college, it is better to check every sentence to make sure it is perfect. Many people think that proofreading is about looking for grammar mistakes but the process is actually a little more complicated than that. For example, it ensures that everything you needed to include in the text is there and that language, style, and instructions are followed.

If you are looking for proofreading tips for your scholarship essay, look no further. Below, we will review some errors that you should look for, and some great proofreading techniques to get you started right.

What to look for

Unanswered Questions. Scholarship essays must address specific themes described in the instructions. For example, if you need to write about a person who had a major influence on you, you might be asked to identify specific achievements and traits of the person that you admire. Before you begin writing a draft, make a list of the things that need to be analyzed in the essay to ensure that you include them.

If you do not follow the directions provided by the submission board, something can easily go wrong, says Dave Garrett, an academic writing expert from Proessaywriting. As a result, the board members who will read the essay will likely notice that you neglected their directions to answer specific questions.

Spelling and Grammar. Nothing is worse in a scholarship application than submitting an essay that contains incorrect grammar and punctuation mistakes. To avoid this scenario, it is highly recommended to proofread the text several times before you can confidently claim that your scholarship essay is completed. However, do not think that you are done: having a fresh look at the text is also recommended, so proofread it once again when you wake up in the morning.

The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recommends that students “get some distance from the text” and put the text aside for hours, days or even weeks (if time permits).

Style. Style is important for a scholarship essay because it shows how a student can use the appropriate tone, gendered language, strong words, passive/active voice and many other techniques. To ensure that your scholarship essay is written in an appropriate style, check whether you have long sentences that can be difficult to read, unnecessary phrases such as “it is a common fact that” or “there is/are.” Also, check for correct gendered language use: for example, avoid words that could be incorrectly assumed to apply to only one gender, such as nurse.

Proofreading Techniques

Proofread for only one error type at a time. When you try to eliminate all mistakes at once, you might leave some of them unnoticed simply because you were trying to do a lot and lost your focus. It will be much easier to start small and look for specific mistakes because you will be more focused.

Read the essay backwards. It may sound strange but this technique really works. You should begin with the last word on the last page and continue to proofread all the way to the beginning. During the process, read every world separately. This technique is especially powerful for identifying some particular mistakes, such as spelling.

Ask somebody to proofread the essay for you. It is completely okay to have the app essay read by a trusted adult, says independent college admissions consultant Janet Rosier. However, do not try to find as many people as possible, keep it to a minimum, because otherwise your own opinion may get lost. If the person you are giving the essay to has an academic background, even better.

Use online checkers. There are tons of good proofreading tools on the Internet, such as Grammarly, Ginger, PaperRater, and many others. Most of them are free and can identify many mistakes that you missed, so this is a great opportunity to take advantage of the latest proofreading technologies that also recommend improvements.

You are ready to go!

Now you can start writing your scholarship essay with confidence because you have knowledge on how to make it perfect in every way. Given them a try and be a proofreading star! Let this article be useful for you to win the scholarship you need.