Last Draft Checklist
You’ve got completed your essay and you might think it really is prepared for distribution. Now have the list below, as it will allow you to spot feasible flaws in your essay before publishing it. You may be additionally highly encouraged to have the essay prepared between 24 and 12 hours prior to the last submission due date (ideally, or even previous), as a number of the “things” in this list require reading the essay once or twice.
Read your essay for sources:
1. Always check you’ve got referenced every proven fact that is not yours.
Your marker will appear for your own personel voice that is individual initial a few ideas as well as engagement with additional sources. You should be especially careful in differentiating everything you have actually paraphrased or quoted from some other place, and what exactly is really your very own viewpoint. In addition has got to appear clear into the marker regardless if you are paraphrasing a source or quoting straight from this.
2. Look at your recommendations are correct and accurate.
You are following your referencing style closely whether you choose to use MLA or Chicago (footnotes and bibliography), make sure. If you’re in doubt, you ought to ask one of the tutors.
Will be your bibliography to be able?
3. Always check you have got referenced sources that are primary well.
This might appear apparent, but be sure you have actually referenced main sources too, in addition to editions you will be utilizing. If you should be quoting from the play, suggest where in play that one line is from ( ag e.g. Act We, Scene II, ll. 123-38); if from the novel, the web page quantity will suffice.
It could be beneficial to divide your bibliography in “primary” and that is“secondary, and also have the main sources detailed first.
Read your essay for design:
4. Edit for spelling and grammar.
Seek out errors in phrase construction, and typos.
5. Edit for punctuation and syntax.
Perform some sentences flow as they are read by you? Could be the connection between sentences as well as that between clauses clear? It might make it possible to read your essay out noisy, or just the sentences that look questionable. Your argument can look much weaker in the event that links that are logical sentences are unclear. If they’re unclear for your requirements, they’re not going to be clear to your audience either.
Is http://www.edubirdies.org/ really a semi-colon truly the punctuation mark you ought to split those two clauses?
6. Edit for design and language.
Avoid vague terms and broad, banal generalizations, i.e. ‘Sappho’s poetry is beautiful’, ‘The Odyssey is considered the most famous guide in the real history of Western literature’, ‘No woman had been able to work in Ancient Rome’. Start thinking about whether or not the words you’ve got selected at main moments in your argument will be the most readily useful feasible terms you might use.
May be the register you have got utilized much like what you will see in scholarly essays? Verify that you’ve got utilized any words that are colloquial phrases, as those commonly are not right for an university essay.
Study for argument and framework.
7. Edit for framework.
Is any paragraph in your essay more than a web page? If that’s the case, it might require cutting or re-formulating. A lot of the times, long paragraphs read better when they’re split up into two faster people.
8. Look at the movement of the argument.
Does your argument movement obviously from 1 paragraph to a higher? Is the argument plainly laid right out of the beginning? Have you been rendering it clear whenever you are disagreeing by having a source or an interpretation?
9. Re-read your introduction.
Your introduction must be neither too brief nor a long time; preferably, you’d aim that it is around 300-500 terms (NB: this may rely on the length that is overall of essay). Make it appear interesting: your introduction could be the very first thing your marker will read and it’ll contour their judgement of the essay because they continue reading it. Needless to say, a scholastic essay is perhaps maybe not a catchy blog post, but there are numerous ways that you are able to the very first paragraph interesting, such as for example utilizing an excellent quote through the primary supply or one of many additional sources you’ve got read, or even for instance engaging earnestly because of the essay question/title. One other thing that the introduction have to do is offer a feeling of what’s going to take place when you look at the real human body of one’s essay: this would never be a listing of your arguments (you do not need to offer a lot of out of the beginning! ), nonetheless it should provide the marker a great grasp of one’s essay theme and argument.
10. Re-read your conclusion.
Never think about your summary since the brief minute whenever you distribute your essay in sighs of relief (well, it could be that too! ), but alternatively because the culmination of one’s argument, as soon as the whole of one’s essay all comes together. It’s not adequate to write “In conclusion” to close out. Your summary can also be totally different from your introduction, while you might wish to draw on which you talked about here and produce connections. Likewise just like your introduction, your summary is fundamentally the final thing your marker will read and you ought to wish to impress them only a little. Specially, they are wanted by you to feel you’ve got reached a summary, instead of just discovered one.
This short article can be acquired to down load at no cost as being a PDF for usage being a learning that is personal or even for use within the class room as a training resource.
Department of English and associated Literature University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, British Tel: work 01904 323366 Twitter: @UoYEnglish