A quick checklist for your proofreading enjoyment.

Those of you who are students, especially my college chums, probably write a lot of papers. Not everybody’s an English major, so here’s a list of things for which you should check when you’re doing that quick proofread before you hit print and dash off to class (if you’re like me). Or if you’re a little more studious, do an indepth check, but make these a priority before you send it off to your proofreader.

1. Don’t rely solely on spellcheck. While it’s a lovely program and a great help to mankind, it can also trip you up. Go back through your paper and make sure you didn’t spell anything wrong by way of turning it into another word. For example, sometimes I type “form” instead of “from,” and one time I accidentally turned in a paper with the word “extant” instead of “extent.” I was highly embarrassed.
2. Check your tenses. Sometimes writers slip into present from past and then into future, and so on. This is especially common in narratives. Nothing makes your reader stagger to a halt more than an uncalled for tense change. Remember that if you start in the past, stay in the past. If you start talking about something that happened prior to the action that’s already in the past, make it paster than past.
3. Watch your punctuation. Don’t abuse your commas (or your colons, or your semicolons, or your ellipses). If you’re unsure of how to use a special punctuation mark, it’s best to stick with something you know. Better yet, refer back to one of my numerous posts on punctuation. Please remember that commas are not a seasoning, and you are not permitted to salt your paper to taste with them.  Additionally, avoid exclamation points unless you think long and hard about it and decide that you really really need it (as in you’ll get an F if you don’t have this one exclamation point). Too many exclamation points look silly! Use your words to cause excitement!
4. Keep your audience in mind. In a formal academic paper, you shouldn’t speak in the second person, as I’m doing now. That means don’t talk directly to your audience by using “you.” If one should happen to need it, he should replace the “you” with “one” and third person pronouns, just as I’m doing now. Also, unless you’re specifically asked about your personal experiences, you should stay away from speaking in the first person. And in formal writing, don’t use contractions (and don’t start your sentences with conjunctions).
5. Stick to your required style. Whether it’s MLA, APA, Chicago, or whatever else your professor can come up with, check and double check that you’re using it correctly and consistently. Make sure everything that needs to be italicized or underlined or quoted is (and is done correctly). When it comes to citations, triple check them.
6. Watch out for homonyms. This was kind of covered in step one, but I’ll reiterate just in case you missed it. Do not misuse there/their/they’re, then/than, it’s/its, effect/affect, or any other of those tricky little homonyms. Spellcheck will not catch them. If you don’t know the differences between these words, refer to my previous posts.
7. For God sake, watch out for homonyms. I can’t say it enough. Just check for them, ok?

There you have it. Seven easy steps (which are really only five and a half easy steps) to minimize the red pen and to make your proofreader’s job easier. There are other important matters when it comes to writing, of course, but this is supposed to be a quick checklist for a quick proofread. Happy writing! <—-I decided that I really really needed that exclamation point.

Just because they sound the same doesn’t mean they are.

Homonyms. They’re rather tricky, and it drives me to insanity when they trick people. Let’s sort them out, for all our sakes.

Their parking there cars over they’re. What’s wrong with this sentence? Only everything! Sadly, a situation such as this is a common occurrence. Let’s try again.

They’re parking their cars over there. There, that’s much better. I’ll give you the rundown.

They’re: a contraction, meaning “they are”. This is the most neglected of the homonyms, often being replaced by “there,” which is oh so very painfully wrong.

Their: a plural possessive. “Their cars” translates to “the cars that belong to them.”

There: the opposite of here.

Some other maligned homonyms are your and you’re.

Your: like their, is a possessive. Your purple giraffe, however imaginary, belongs to you.

You’re: like they’re, it’s a contraction, meaning “you are.” If you ever want to let someone know that he or she is anything, you should use “you’re” and never ever “your,” because that would be wrong. And if you wanted to insult someone, you’d have to know the difference, because if you say “Your a doodoo head,” The insultee would simply laugh in your face and say, “You’re an idiot.”

And the third set of most often abused homonyms are it’s and its.

It’s and its are tricky, because the possessive is wily. Remember what I said about the apostrophe turning things into a possessive? Forget that rule when it comes to it’s and its. “It’s” is the contraction, translating to “it is” while “its” is the possessive.

Your purple giraffe’s fur belongs to it. Hence, its purple fur.

Your giraffe’s fur is an odd color. It’s purple.

Just remember that the apostrophe, in its many functions, serves as a place holder for letters that get left out when we squish words together. In this case, it’s taking the place of the “i” in “it is.” And it must do this, even above being used to make a possessive.

God save the apostrophe.

First up: the oft abused apostrophe.

The apostrophe is overworked. He has enough to do without performing additional duties, thank you very much, so why don’t we use him and let’s not abuse him, yes? Here’s how.

I’m not the first person to say this, but it’s good advice, so I’ll reiterate: an apostrophe does not mean, “Look out, here comes an S.” It just doesn’t. End of story. This means when you’re looking to make a plural, it’s probably not a good idea to just stick an apostrophe S (’s) on the end of your word and hope it all works out for the best. What you’ve done there is make a possessive.

So if you see a sign that says “Carrot’s for sale,” the obvious question is, “Carrot’s what?” because what can a carrot possibly own? It should simply say, “Carrots for sale,” and all this confusion could be avoided and we’d go about our merry carrot buying ways. Think of the plural word as a group of letters that long to join together to make a whole. If you separate part of a word from itself with an apostrophe, you’re not only overworking the poor punctuation mark, but you’re also refusing the plural word the pleasure of being whole. Do them all a kindness.

Similarly, nay, in exactly the same manner, the plural of CD is not CD’s, but rather CDs. The same goes for DVDs. It might look weird at first, but you’ll soon grow accustomed to doing it the right way. Learn it, love it, feel empowered by your correct apostrophe usage. He’ll thank you later.