Editing the final draft

Developing your own editing checklist

The ideas presented in this module on editing your work cover three areas: structural features; grammatical aspects; and technical features. You can customise these suggestions by compiling your own one page checklist from these three areas, incorporating features to which you need to pay special attention. It is also advisable to add in brief your marker's comments on your assignments as a special reminder of the things you should pay attention to when submitting future assignments.

Here are some general questions that can help to start off your checklist:

Have I fully understood the question?
Have I answered the question?
Does my opening paragraph prepare the reader for what follows?
Does my writing flow smoothly and logically from point to point? Are their adequate transitions between the sentences and paragraphs?
Does each sentence state its case concisely and unambiguously?
Is there a clear distinction between my thoughts and words and those of the author/s I have read?
Is each fact supported by a reference, an example or an explanation?
Have I proofread for spelling, grammatical and referencing errors?

(Adapted from "Questions for the end of the day", The Learning Centre, UNSW)