So, you’ve finished writing your assignment and now you sit back in the chair and plan to relax. Okay, but there are a few more things that need to be done. You are aware of any Turnitin hack but are you aware of what you have to do to complete your school or college work? Well, if you aren’t, we have what you need – a list of what you should check your work for.
Yes, there are a lot of useful things you can find on the Internet. Things like advice on how to write better, briefs on different types of essays, etc. But now we don’t want to discuss the beginning steps of writing. No, we wish to focus on the final elements that you have to look for.
Of course, we want you to achieve an amazing grade. Thus, we compiled a list of five things to check when you’ve completed your essay. Those are checks that ensure you are turning in an as perfect essay as possible. Let’s see what those are.
Fact Check
Well, you need to have researched your topic beforehand. Obviously, you need to cite the sources you’ve used. Now, when you are done, you may feel it pointless to fact-check because you’ve cited sources appropriately. But you know what, they could be wrong. Thus, fact-checking is an important step. By doing so you can spot weak sources and debatable facts that prove to contain more nuances than you’ve seen at first glance. See whether any credible sources go against your opinion. This will better show whether the fact is right than if you are trying to find sources that agree with what you’ve written.
Spell Check
Yes, this doesn’t look like quite a problem. After all, there is a spell-checking function in every word processor. It may seem like they are going to catch the mistakes, right? Well, not quite. Technology cannot replace human analysis. For instance, the word processors are going to underline any term that is not in their database. Thus, they can bring about a lot of false positives. Why is that? Well, because many of the legal, scientific, and other specialized terms aren’t put in the database. When you see a lot of false positives, you may easily make the mistake of ignoring the warnings given.
Plus, there can be instances when a given word is spelled correctly if we look at it from a technical point of view. Still, it can be the wrong word, it can be capitalized wrongly, or there may be some other problem. For example, you may have written ‘their’, rather than ‘they’re’. This won’t be caught by the software but it’s a mistake, nonetheless.
Grammar Check
Here goes the same as above. Numerous automated tools serve to check the grammar of your writing. Still, they are limited in their actions. Also, they too make mistakes and give false positives in some cases. So, the point here is that human checks cannot be substituted by a program that checks grammar.
Yes, grammar checks may prove to be hard. You have the knowledge about what you’ve written, and it can be hard to slow down and become critical towards your work. So, you can ask a friend to do the reading. Then they can point out mistakes and you can fix them. They mustn’t directly do the changes but show you where mistakes are. If that is impossible, you can read the text out loud or backward to go slow enough for catching anything wrong.
Clarity Check
This is a bit harder since you know what you mean. But that may seem different to someone from a different background or age. Once again, have someone read your assignment. Or try to accomplish that yourself by putting your ideas down as straightforwardly as possible. All unneeded language should be removed and the text needs to be tightened.
Similarity Check
Yes, since you’ve written everything yourself and from scratch and you’ve cited your sources, there shouldn’t be any surprises regarding similarity. But schools and colleges take the matter quite seriously, so it wouldn’t hurt to be completely sure. Run your work through a plagiarism checker. This will show you whether something you’ve written matches something that’s already published. Results are not going to be 100% authentic all the time. But the similarity check will show you any questionable passages and it’ll also give you a way to see if you’ve missed quote marks or citations. Even if your paper or essay is highly unique, the plagiarism check will at least make you calm and certain in your work. If you are wondering about avoiding Turnitin, one way to do so is to make sure you don’t write a given sentence exactly how it was written in another place. There are other methods, as well, that are covered in a different article.
Conclusion
Okay, now we are finished. After doing all those checks, you can be certain of what you’ve written. Also, they take just a little bit of time, so you can do them quite easily. Try to apply those checks in order not to take risks. Otherwise, there may be something you’ve missed, and it can downsize your grade. So, to get the best grade possible, make sure you take a few moments to do those five checks on your text.