Hi Class,

Remember that you must turn in the Final Essay on Wednesday, December 11. Please bring in your notes from the entire semester (and Harry Potter, Shakespeare, and Do Androids) as we will review for the final exam.

Revising and Proofreading Advice:

1. Buy a friend a cup of coffee and ask them read over your essay and make comments. Or, offer to trade essays.
2. Pay a friend/colleague a nickel for every mistake or problem that they find.
3. Read your essay out loud. Enunciate each word. If something is wrong, your ear usually picks it up.
4. Read “backwards.” This is a technique used by professional editors and proofreaders: starting at the end of your essay, read each sentence in reverse order (don’t read the words in reverse order).
5. Revise each topic sentence to reveal exactly what the paragraph is trying to claim/assert.
6. Replace all weak verbs; change passive verbs to active verbs.
7. Make sure that your topic sentences are aligned with your thesis. Do they help support your overall thesis? They should.
8. Make sure that your thesis, topic sentences, and your conclusion speak to each other–that they are linked. Revise as needed.
9. Make sure that commas are inside the quotations. For Example:

Iran seems distant and morose for much of the novel, but in the last scene, after Rick has retired all the Androids and has brought a toad back to their apartment, she sets his mood organ for “long deserved peace,” a display of kindness that some readers will find surprising (243).  

10. Make sure to use grammar check and spell check. Set the grammar check to “formal.”

11. Email me your questions.

Best,

Prof. Scanlan