Editing Tools and Resources
Essential Question
What tools can you use to help edit and proofread your work?
Grammar in the World
What Do I Know?
What do you already know about using tools and resources to help you proofread your writing? Use the following interactive to find out.
Directions: Choose the best option to help in the following scenarios.
Building Blocks
Grammar is a complex system and structure of language. Mizzou Academy Grammar Lab spotlights one skill (or block) at a time, but it’s often helpful to see how a skill works together with other, related blocks to build the language structure as a whole. You may find the following resource topics helpful as context for this lesson:
- Capitalization
- Sentence Types and End Punctuation
- Identifying Fragments
- Identifying Run-On Sentences
- Identifying Choppy Writing
- Editing for Clarity
- Editing to Cut the Fluff
- Editing for Structure and Style
- Editing to Correct Fragments
- Editing to Correct Run-on Sentences
- Editing for Subject-Verb Agreement
- Editing for Punctuation
- Correcting Common Usage Errors
- Correcting Common Spelling Errors
Learn About Editing Tools and Resources
Once you have written a draft of an assignment, you can hit the submit button and go celebrate, right?
Well, maybe not so fast.
An important part of writing well is also learning how to edit your work, and in this lesson you will learn some tools, tips, and tricks to help you turn in a well-edited, polished assignment.
Tools, Tips, and Tricks
Spellcheck
One of the simplest tools you can use to help edit your work is to use spellcheck. Using spellcheck will help you find and correct misspelled words in your document. It is a helpful tool, but it still requires your human brain to make sure it does its job.
Spellcheck isn’t perfect:
- It might not recognize the difference between your and you're or hear and here.
- It won't recognize personal information, such as whether you're using the correct name for someone.
- It won't always pick up on words that are written differently depending on how they are used in a sentence, such as the difference between everyday and every day.
- And, it won't let you know if you switched from past to present tense or if your paragraphs are too long.
How to use Spellcheck in Google Docs
- Open the document you want to spellcheck.
- Click Tools.
- Click Spelling and Grammar
- Add a checkmark by Spelling and grammar check, Show spelling suggestions, and Show grammar suggestions.
- If there are words that you use that are spelled correctly but that Google thinks are spelled incorrectly, you can click Personal Dictionary and add those words.
How to use Spellcheck in Word
- Open the document you want to spellcheck.
- Click Tools.
- Make sure that “Hide Spelling Errors” and “Hide Grammar Errors” are not clicked.
- Note: In some versions of Microsoft Word, you can also click the Editor tool, and on the right-hand side of the screen you will see the number of spelling and grammar corrections, and it can check for how concise your writing is as well as check for similarity in online sources.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an online tool that can help your writing in many different ways. Grammarly can help with spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
It can also help with word choice, wordiness, and plagiarism detection. From the Grammarly website, you can download an extension to your browser. As with a spellchecker, a grammar checker will not find every error, either, so don’t only rely on these tools to find every error.
Proofreading Tips
Keep in mind that even the most sophisticated spelling and grammar tools cannot take the place of a human eye to make wise decisions. Here are some tips to help you polish your work:
Do I Get It?
What Did Spellcheck Miss?
You learned about helpful editing tools in this lesson, but you also learned that editing tools are not perfect. As wonderful as Spellcheck is, there is nothing as marvelous as the human eye.
Directions: Read the sentences below and click on the errors (spelling, usage, punctuation, or capitalization) that Spellcheck might miss.
Show answer key
I only use Spellcheck to proofread my papers, and it positively affects the quality of my assignments.
In fact, when my teacher reads my paper, I am pretty sure that he will compliment my writing and say that it's amazing.
He might even forward my work to the principal, and I could earn a writing award.
At the very least, my writing will elicit an A.
If anyone asks me for advice about writing, I tell them just to use Spellcheck. It’s great!