Hi All,

I have completed the second draft of my thesis!  My supervisors said that the thesis is good, but needs a really good proof read. I cannot afford a professional proof reader so I have to do it by myself.  My problem is that I am not good at proof reading! When I read, I often insert words which are not there and change the order of words in my head.  I don't just do this to my own work, but to everything I read. hmmmm.... So my questions are:

Does anyone have any tips on how to proof read accurately? 

I have been told to read out loud and also to read backwards (1 sentence at a time). Has any tried these tips?

Cheers,
Potatoes

I always read my stuff out loud and it works for me but I suspect my neighbour thinks I'm nuts!!!

Ditto the above. The only way I could proofread my own work was out loud.

Good luck :) DO you have a kind mother/sister/brother/partner/friend who can read your thesis? I give mine to my (very patient) mum, who has not a clue about my research but she can see if things make sense, the flow of the sentence, missing words (and many extra commas in my case). Perhaps if you only give them a chapter each they will not be so overwhelmed. I personally find it extremely hard to proofread my own work. BDW well done on the 'good thesis' remark from your supervisors.

======= Date Modified 19 Mar 2012 08:04:16 =======
Thanks for the feedback. I am going to try reading it out loud. I had thought about getting a friend to do it. But I really need to learn how to proof read my own work for the future. Also, my family live in the other side of the world and are not computer literate....

Cheers, I will report how it goes.

Potatoes

The comments made so far here are good'uns. Even better is if you can get someone who's completed the PhD process sucessfully to proof read for you, this based on the assumption "You only know how to do a PhD once you've completed it". Hand over bits in manageable bitesize chunks so as not to swamp whoever you ask. Also, even if you disagree with some of what they say, remember to thank them properly and in all likelihood a good proof read can make or break a thesis.

I got bits of a lad's thesis to proof read shortly after I finally signed off on mine, only to find his English language skills were appauling. I would safely consider his discussion chapter to be in parts a random collection of English words rather than a coherent descrition of his findings. He'd been given three days to sort it out or be failed, this due to him possibly being near his five year upper limit allowed by my PhD University. So it was going to be a tough ask for us to sort it out for him. That said, I roped in my mum to help me and the two of us managed develop it into a coherent passage of text.

We handed the revised docuemnt back to him. Later in the day "You changed the meaning!!!". I responded "There was no meaning!!!"

He submitted and got through with minor corrections. Did I and my mum get any thanks for helping him? Nope!!!

He's now the one with the successful career back in his home country, with an example of his work showcased by my PhD University (you literally cannot miss the equipment as it stands proud above the back of the building). My work and and a good bit of that of my other colleagues and predecessors has be largely forgotten in comparison, after the group I worked in was disbanded after I left.

Not bad for a lad who was so close to being failed. :-(

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Thanks for reply Ian,

Sorry for getting back slow but I have been proof reading for two days straight. Also most there, only 60 pages to go. I take your point about proof reading. My research does tend to make sense according to my supervisors but just has words missing or a word too many. I am going to try and get my thesis back to them and see if they notice a difference in the typos...

Cheers,
potatoes