CORRECTING YOUR WRITTEN WORK

In a foreign language most people make more silly unnecessary

mistakes when writing than in their first language: it is as if the careful
part of your brain is not activated in the foreign language. And it is very
frustrating for you because you make mistakes which are things which
you already know perfectly well. If you find your writing has a lot of silly
careless mistakes which checking could eliminate, things which you
know are wrong but which you dont notice when you are writing, here
are some ideas to help.

i. Write slowly not fast and check each sentence immediately you
have finished it.
ii. When you have finished the complete text, cover everything except
the first word in the top line. Look at the first word and try to remember
what the second word was. Check if you are right. Now look at the first
two words and try to guess what the third word was. Then look at the
first three words and try to think what word four is. Go through all the
text like this. The object of this exercise is to find things like he go or
would you like eating (instead of would you like to eat).
iii. Check the complete text several times, not just once.
iv. Check it on different occasions for example, the day after you
have written it and then again couple of days later.
v. Read the text aloud to see if it sounds right.
vi. Check the usual suspects third person singular s on verbs, subject
before the verb and not after, that verbs are all in the same tense and
you have not, for example, mixed past and present tenses, nationality
words with a small letter (italian food for Italian food), days of the week
and months with capitals, confusing your for his, etc. Make a list of the
typical silly errors which you always make.
vii. Make a list of the words which you always misspell (studing for
studying, for example) and then tattoo them on your skin. Similarly
make a list of the prepositions you always get wrong (depend of for
depend on, spend money in for spend money on) and cut off a finger
each time you repeat the error. Or alternatively check your list against
each piece of writing which you do.

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viii. When you are checking your text try translating it back into
Spanish. If something translates very directly and easily that should
ring an alarm bell: it may be a false friend. Stop and think.
ix. Show your writing to a classmate and see if he can find any errors.
x. When the teacher corrects your writing make sure you understand
100% why something is wrong. Correct every error and show the
corrected writing to the teacher again.
xi. When you have finished an essay, make a photocopy and keep it.
The teacher checks the original, you correct it and in theory you learn
from your mistakes. Then a week or two weeks later look at the
photocopy which still has the uncorrected errors and see firstly if you
can find the errors without looking at the sheet the teacher has
corrected and, if you can find the errors, try to correct them. Finally
check the corrected photocopy against your original sheet corrected by
the teacher. This way you can see if you have learned from your
mistakes.
xii. Very often an error cannot be corrected because the student does
not look at the error in context. Often if you only look at the wrong word
and also the word on either side of it (a total of three words) this is not
enough. Frequently you need to look at the entire sentence or even the
entire paragraph in order to correct the word which is wrong.
xiii. If your computer has an English grammar or spelling check software do
not use it for your homework.
xiv. Tell me if any of the ideas above are a waste of time. And also
think of more ways you can improve your checking technique and tell
me so I can pass them on to other students.

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