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Thursday, June 12, 2014

Quick tips for proofreading your own content

- Everything! 
- Re-read. 
- Spellcheck
- Grammar check. 
-- Check for fragments. 
-- Check for noun/verb agreement. 
-- Check for passive/active language. 
- Consider the sentences as a structure - not as content. 
- Look for ands/ors/thats strung together, commas, and very long sentences/paragraphs.
- Consider breaking into smaller sentences. 
- Bullet points. 
- Consider length. 
- Consider What-How-When-Why-Where - is everything important included? 
- Prioritize. Put the most important piece of information in the first sentence if possible. If it can't be in the first sentence, put it in a single paragraph near the top.
- Be consistent in language
- Spell out acronyms the first time they are used
-  Avoid repetition, when possible. 
- Consider your target audience. 
- Read your writing out loud slowly. 
- Dump it into notepad in a different font and review. Then ask someone else to read it. I've read to read backwards one word at a time, but that totally didn't work for me.

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