Proofreading

Mr. Rickerts way to

happiness and success with
writing.
A SEVEN STEP PROCESS

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!

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.

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.

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.

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 arent sure LOOK IT UP!

Step 4 Check for

Punctuation Mistakes
Five Punctuation marks:

Commas,
Periods,
Apostrophes,
Quotation Marks
Underlining.

Check for each kind of mistake.

If you arent sure LOOK IT UP!

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.

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 nots make a
do.
A/an choices An comes before a

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 ARENT ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE
LOOK IT UP!

Benefits of Mr. Rickerts

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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