Find for mistakes in your thesis

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,” Ernest Hemingway. While writing of any kind comes with its own set of difficulties especially for those who do not have a natural flair for it, finding mistakes in one’s own text is even more complex as one generally tends to overlook the most obvious flaws.

One must write fearlessly and edit mercilessly. The same applies to finding mistakes while editing your own thesis. However, a problem arises when you are trying to figure out the flaws in your writing. You have an emotional connect with your script and the difficulty with emotional responses is that they ignore practical common sense. Subconsciously a story is formed in your brain when you are putting your thoughts on paper and the same story is framed when you are re-reading your thesis. Hence, inadvertently you get carried away, rush through your essay and easily jump to the revision stage.

When you are exposed to the same words written by you repeatedly, you learn the ideas and absorb the thought inculcated in the essay. Hence, you must step away from your dissertation as long as you have time to maintain an emotional distance from your words before revisiting them. Research before you start writing and understand your topic well.

There are three stages of finding mistakes in your thesis namely;

Editing

Copy-editing

Proofreading

When on stage,  editing needs more focus on the bigger picture. Also, termed as developmental or substantial editing. During the first phase, review your work keeping in mind the broader perspective i.e. instead of focusing on intricate details, at this step pay attention to organization and consistency.

In the second stage of copy editing, fine-tune every line of your dissertation and check for style issues, capitalisation, hyphenation, and numbers spelled out or written as numerals.

The third and last stage is that of proofreading. This requires a lot of focus and is equivalent to examining your work under the microscope. Check for minor (but significant) errors such as that of spelling, space, fonts, numbering and redundant words.

Remember what Oprah Winfrey said, “There is no such thing as failure. Mistakes happen in your life to bring into focus more clearly who you really are.” Therefore, write with no inhibitions, make mistakes, hunt for them and correct them.

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