1. Proofreading
Ms. Clarke’s way to happiness and
success with writing.
A SEVEN STEP PROCESS

2. Seven Steps
• When you have completed all seven steps you
will have identified all the possible errors.
• Checking your paper sentence by sentence
ensures that you are focusing on what is actually
on the page, not just what you think should be
on the page!

3. The Seven Steps
• 1. Check for complete sentences
• 2. Check for words that are left out and check
for words or ideas that are repeated
• 3. Check all words for capitalization mistakes.
• 4. Check for all punctuation mistakes.
• 5. Check for subject-verb agreement.
• 6. Check for problems in usage.
• 7. Check for misspelled words.

4. Step 1 – Complete Sentences
• A sentence is complete when it has:
– A Subject – What or who is the sentence about.
– A Verb – What is being said about the subject, or
what did the subject do.
– A Capital letter at the beginning.
– An end mark at the end.
– It makes complete sense.

5. Step 2 – Are Words left out or
repeated?
• Sometimes we start a sentence with an idea and
then restate the idea at the end because we
forgot what we said.
• Sometimes we accidentally repeat or leave out
words because we know what we meant to say,
but forget to actually say it.

6. Step 3 – Check for Capitalization
Mistakes
• All proper nouns should be capitalized.
• All proper adjectives should be capitalized.
• Important words in Titles should be capitalized.
• Common nouns should not be capitalized.
• If you aren’t sure LOOK IT UP!

7. Step 4 – Check for Punctuation
Mistakes
• Five Punctuation marks:
– Commas,
– Periods,
– Apostrophes,
– Quotation Marks
– Underlining.
• Check for each kind of mistake.
• If you aren’t sure LOOK IT UP!

8. Step 5 – Subject-Verb Agreement
• If you have a singular subject you should have a
singular verb.
– The cat plays with the yarn (correct)
– The cats plays with the yarn (incorrect)
– The cat play with the yarn (incorrect)
• If you have a plural subject you should have a
plural verb.
• Be careful in identifying the correct subject so
you know which type of verb to use.

9. Step 6 – Check for problems in
usage.
• Pronoun usage – does the pronoun refer to a
specific, already identified noun within the
paragraph.
• Double negatives – two ‘not’s make a do.
• A/an choices – An comes before a …

10. Step 7 - Check for Misspelled Words
• Keep an eye out for misused homonyms (words that
sound alike but have different spellings and meanings)
• Check each word starting from the end of the sentence
and working toward the beginning. (this keeps you
from assuming what the word will be because of
context and helps you see what is actually on the page)
• IF YOU AREN’T ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE LOOK
IT UP!

11. Benefits of Ms. Clarke’s approach
• There are seven types of errors you can make.
• The hunt and find method of proofreading is
based on finding a percentage of your mistakes.
• My system ensures you will find 100% of the
errors in your paper.

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