Although consulting a human editor will make your job significantly easier, the college essay editing cost can sometimes be a burden. If you prefer self-editing your essay, you can use the following steps to help you ace your assignment.
It is challenging to identify errors and inconsistencies in your essay immediately after writing it. Make sure to take a break and return to your work later with fresh eyes. This will help you view your essay from different perspectives and identify problem areas. You can also do this by asking friends or family members to review your work and provide necessary feedback.
Start off with a comprehensive overview. This includes creating a cohesive structure and ensuring the proper flow of arguments. Make sure that all your topics and concluding sentences highlight the importance of your thesis statement. You can also cut-and-paste parts of sentences or paragraphs to build momentum throughout your writing.
After rearranging the major paragraphs to ensure a smooth-flowing structure, it’s time to cut the fluff. This may include repetitive information, filler content, as well as redundancies. Cutting out unnecessary information makes your essay concise and to the point, allowing your readers to focus on the key points of your argument.
It’s important to limit the use of jargon and ensure that your essay is accessible and easy to understand. While technical terms can be used in certain contexts, make sure to use them sparingly and accurately. It is important to strike a balance between technical and non-technical language. This will help you can write an essay that is both informative and engaging.
Avoid using lengthy run-on sentences that can be difficult to follow. Use clear, concise sentences that convey your ideas effectively. When it comes to academic writing, avoid using exclamation marks and em-dashes. They can be seen as highly informal and are usually used in stories or creative works.
Make sure to stick to your university’s formatting and style guidelines when writing essays. This includes using headings and subheadings correctly, and ensuring that the font size and style are consistent throughout your essay. You can also make key points stand out by using bold or italicized text when necessary.
The above pointers show how editing essays is tedious and can be time-consuming. As editing experts , we can make the editing process simpler for you.
To reduce your challenges while writing essays, we have created extensive resources for you. You can bookmark the following resources and revisit them to clarify any doubts about essay writing!
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The work isn't done when you finish writing your essay. To get the best grade possible, you'll need to edit your paper.
Editing academic writing can be tricky, and good editing involves more than just running your work through an essay checker .
Here are our six top tips on how to edit an essay, so you can get a top grade every time.
Where to find essay editing help.
Writing an essay is hard work! Once you put in time researching, outlining, and writing, you want to be sure to turn in a near-perfect essay.
Editing your essay to perfection can be done in just a few simple steps.
The thesis statement is the backbone of your essay . You can think of your thesis statement as the answer to the question or prompt.
If someone asks, "What is your essay about?" the thesis statement would be the one or two sentence response to that question.
The thesis guides the rest of your paper. It's the main idea of your essay. Generally, a thesis statement is just one sentence. That's a lot of work for one little sentence to do in your essay.
When you edit, be sure your thesis statement is strong. A strong thesis will answer the prompt or guiding research question, but it will also be succinct. It should be clear, so eliminate any wordiness.
You should also ensure it aligns with the rest of the essay.
If you wrote your thesis at the beginning of your writing process, your essay might have taken a slightly different track from what you intended. If this is the case, adjust your thesis statement accordingly.
Note that a thesis can be longer than just one sentence, but this isn't typical for a regular term paper–style essay.
If your essay is much longer than average, or it's a write-up of an original experiment or study, you might need more than one sentence.
Your thesis also doesn't have to be a long sentence, although it can be. Rather than worrying about the length of your thesis, focus on whether it is clear and answers the question.
Every argument or point in your essay should support the thesis statement. In essays, the main arguments make up the body paragraphs.
Sometimes, an essay draft might feature weak arguments or points that oppose the thesis. Perhaps you've included a paragraph that doesn’t fit the topic at all.
Edit without mercy. Look for weak or unnecessary arguments. As you analyze every point, ask yourself if it supports the thesis. If it doesn't, remove it entirely.
But what if cutting out a paragraph affects your word count? You should not have anything in your essay just to add words.
A well-developed and cohesive essay with a strong argument is always more important than hitting the requisite word count or page number.
In fact, if your essay is strong enough, your professors probably won't even notice if you're a hundred words shy. You will, however, lose marks for unnecessary information.
Use citations to avoid plagiarism. When you write an essay, it's important that you attribute every fact or idea that you didn't come up with yourself. You must cite it whether it's a direct quote or a paraphrase.
Your professor probably gave you a specific style guide to follow, such as MLA or Chicago.
Not only do you need to be sure you've cited everything, you must cite properly according to the style guide.
Be sure you've added the appropriate spaces and correct punctuation to your in-text citations. Check requirements from your style guide.
It's easy to add unnecessary words when you're writing. But when you're editing, you want to clean up anything that makes your writing feel wordy.
Being verbose isn't the best approach to writing an essay.
Students often fall into the trap of wordiness in order to sound "smart" or to reach the required number of words. But you'll sound smarter if you can explain your position with tighter sentences.
One area to look at is your connecting words . These are words that help you connect ideas and transition from one point to another.
Keeping transitions to one or two words is a good idea. Instead of saying, "as a further example," you can just say, "furthermore." Say "next" instead of saying, "The next argument is."
Unnecessary words also show up when you over-explain or repeat an idea. Are you saying the same thing with different wording?
Pay attention to your paragraph structure. A good paragraph structure for an essay is:
You can also have more than one piece of evidence and commentary per paragraph. This general structure will help cut down on wordiness.
You don't need to quote something, paraphrase it , add commentary, and then reword that commentary. Say each thing once.
Spelling and grammar errors can make an otherwise great essay get a failing grade. Grammar mistakes affect how clear your writing is.
Don't feel bad if spelling and grammar aren't your strong suit. Many professional writers struggle with the mechanics of a language.
Read through your essay to look for obvious errors, then use an editing software to find more mistakes.
If your university has a writing center, you can also have someone look over your essay to find additional mistakes. This is usually a free service.
A final step you can use for editing your essay is reading it aloud. This technique is a great way to catch errors that slipped past you and an editing program.
You'll be surprised how many errors you can find when you read aloud a final draft. Often, these mistakes are typos, strange syntax, and missing words.
Reading aloud helps you find sentences that are unclear, even if they're grammatically correct.
ProWritingAid is here to help with all your essay editing needs. We're more than a grammar checker.
Our app will help you find unnecessary words, poor syntax, and transition issues. It will point out vague word choices, passive voice, and readability issues.
Unlike other editing programs, you get access to all of our editing reports for free. If you're worried about plagiarism, you can also run a plagiarism check on your essay for a nominal cost.
Use prowritingaid.
Are your teachers always pulling you up on the same errors? Maybe you're losing clarity by writing overly long sentences or using the passive voice too much.
ProWritingAid helps you catch these issues in your essay before you submit it.
Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.
Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie romance author and blog manager at ProWritingAid. She sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which brings fresh perspectives to her romance novels. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, child, and basset hound.
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Extracurriculars.
What’s covered:, our checklist for writing, proofreading, and editing your essay, where to get your college essays edited.
Your college essay is more than just a writing assignment—it’s your biggest opportunity to showcase the person behind your GPA, test scores, and extracurricular activities. In many ways, it’s the best chance you have to present yourself as a living, breathing, and thoughtful individual to the admissions committee.
Unlike test scores, which can feel impersonal, a well-crafted essay brings color to your application, offering a glimpse into your passions, personality, and potential. Whether you’re an aspiring engineer or an artist, your college essay can set you apart, making it essential that you give it your best.
Focus on responding directly and thoughtfully to the prompt. If the question asks about your reasons for choosing a specific program or your future aspirations, ensure that your essay revolves around these themes. Tailor your narrative to the prompt, using personal experiences and reflections that reinforce your points.
An essay with a clear structure is easier to follow and is more impactful. Consider organizing your story chronologically, or use a thematic approach to convey your message. Each paragraph should transition smoothly to the next, maintaining a natural flow of ideas. A well-organized essay is not only easier for the reader to follow, but it can also aid your narrative flow. Logically structured essays can guide the reader through complex and hectic sequences of events in your essay. There are some key factors involved in good structuring:
Enhance your narrative with specific details, vivid examples, and engaging anecdotes. This approach brings your story to life, making it more compelling and relatable. It helps the reader visualize your experiences and understand your perspectives.
Does your personality come through? Does your essay sound like you? Since this is a reflection of you, your essay needs to show who you are.
For example, avoid using vocabulary you wouldn’t normally use—such as “utilize” in place of “use”—because you may come off as phony or disingenuous, and that won’t impress colleges.
Your essay should demonstrate not only your academic strengths. but also the ways in which your personal qualities align with the specific character and values of the school you’re applying to . While attributes like intelligence and collaboration are universally valued, tailor your essay to reflect aspects that are uniquely esteemed at each particular institution.
For instance, if you’re applying to Dartmouth, you might emphasize your appreciation for, and alignment with, the school’s strong sense of tradition and community. This approach shows a deeper understanding of and a genuine connection to the school, beyond its surface-level attributes.
Your essay should focus on the topic at hand, weaving your insights, experiences, and perspectives into a cohesive narrative, rather than a disjointed list of thoughts or accomplishments. It’s important to avoid straying into irrelevant details that don’t support your main theme. Instead of simply listing achievements or experiences, integrate them into a narrative that highlights your development, insights, or learning journey.
Example with tangent:
“My interest in performing arts began when I was five. That was also the year I lost my first tooth, which set off a whole year of ‘firsts.’ My first play was The Sound of Music.”
Revised example:
“My interest in performing arts began when I was five, marked by my debut performance in ‘The Sound of Music.’ This experience was the first step in my journey of exploring and loving the stage.”
Before finalizing your essay, revisit the prompt. Have you addressed all aspects of the question? Make sure your essay aligns with the prompt’s requirements, both in content and spirit. Familiarize yourself with common college essay archetypes, such as the Extracurricular Essay, Diversity Essay, Community Essay, “Why This Major” Essay (and a variant for those who are undecided), and “Why This College” Essay. We have specific guides for each, offering tailored advice and examples:
While these guides provide a framework for each archetype, respectively, remember to infuse your voice and unique experiences into your essay to stand out!
Varying sentence structure, including the length of sentences, is crucial to keep your writing dynamic and engaging. A mix of short, punchy sentences and longer, more descriptive ones can create a rhythm that makes your essay more enjoyable to read. This variation helps maintain the reader’s interest and allows for more nuanced expression.
Original example with monotonous structure:
“I had been waiting for the right time to broach the topic of her health problem, which had been weighing on my mind heavily ever since I first heard about it. I had gone through something similar, and I thought sharing my experience might help.”
Revised example illustrating varied structure:
“I waited for the right moment to discuss her health. The issue had occupied my thoughts for weeks. Having faced similar challenges, I felt that sharing my experience might offer her some comfort.”
In this revised example, the sentences vary in length and structure, moving from shorter, more impactful statements to longer, more descriptive ones. This variation helps to keep the reader’s attention and allows for a more engaging narrative flow.
Incorporating this tip into your writing process can significantly improve the quality and effectiveness of your college essay.
By identifying and consistently utilizing an ideal writing environment, you can enhance both the enjoyment and effectiveness of your essay-writing process.
While spell checkers are a helpful tool, they aren’t infallible. It’s crucial to read over your essay meticulously, possibly even aloud, to catch any spelling errors. Reading aloud can help you notice mistakes that your eyes might skip over when reading silently. Be particularly attentive to words that spellcheck might not catch, such as proper nouns, technical jargon, or homophones (e.g., “there” vs. “their”). Attention to detail in spelling reflects your care and precision, both of which are qualities that admissions committees value.
Correct punctuation and capitalization are key to conveying your message clearly and professionally . A common mistake in writing is the misuse of commas, particularly in complex sentences.
Example of a misused comma:
Incorrect: “I had an epiphany, I was using commas incorrectly.”
In this example, the comma is used incorrectly to join two independent clauses. This is known as a comma splice. It creates a run-on sentence, which can confuse the reader and disrupt the flow of your writing.
Corrected versions:
Correct: “I had an epiphany: I was using commas incorrectly.”
Correct: “I had an epiphany; I was using commas incorrectly.”
Correct: “I had an epiphany—I was using commas incorrectly.”
Correct: “I had an epiphany. I was using commas incorrectly.”
The corrections separate the two clauses with more appropriate punctuation. Colons, semicolons, em dashes, and periods can all be used in this context, though periods may create awkwardly short sentences.
These punctuation choices are appropriate because the second clause explains or provides an example of the first, creating a clear and effective sentence structure. The correct use of punctuation helps maintain the clarity and coherence of your writing, ensuring that your ideas are communicated effectively.
Staying within the word count is crucial in demonstrating your ability to communicate ideas concisely and effectively. Here are some strategies to help reduce your word count if you find yourself going over the prescribed limits:
Implementing a thorough and methodical proofreading process can significantly elevate the quality of your essay, ensuring that it’s free of errors and flows smoothly.
While self-editing is crucial, external feedback can provide new perspectives and ideas that enhance your writing in unexpected ways. This collaborative process can help you keep your essay error-free and can also help make it resonate with a broader audience.
When it comes to refining your college essays, getting external feedback is crucial. Our free Peer Essay Review tool allows you to receive constructive criticism from other students, providing fresh perspectives that can help you see your work in a new light. This peer review process is invaluable and can help you both identify areas for improvement and gain different viewpoints on your writing.
For more tailored expert advice, consider the guidance of a CollegeVine advisor . Our advisors, experienced in the college admissions process, offer specialized reviews to enhance your essays. Their insights into what top schools are looking for can elevate your narrative, ensuring that your application stands out. Whether it’s through fine-tuning your grammar or enriching your story’s appeal, our experts’ experience and expertise can significantly increase your likelihood of admission to your dream school!
When editing an essay, it's crucial to first ensure that the overall structure is coherent and logical. Begin by shortening lengthy sentences and paragraphs to improve readability. Avoid using overly complex language, which can obscure your message. Be vigilant for any repetitive ideas or words, as they can detract from the clarity of your argument. While spellcheck can be helpful, don't rely solely on it for accuracy. Actively search for and correct typos. Lastly, remove any superfluous words and be cautious of using vague or non-committal language that can weaken your statements.
Editing an essay effectively involves several key steps to enhance clarity, coherence, and overall impact. Here's a step-by-step guide:
Remember, effective editing often requires multiple read-throughs and revisions. Take your time to refine your essay until it clearly and effectively communicates your ideas.
When we are writing an essay– or any other writeup there is, we are often guided by different principles. These principles are like a clear pathway toward creating a compelling and well-thought-out work of art. They separate the best from the rest, aesthetic and unpleasing, masterpiece and trash.
The same goes for the process of editing. This process likewise follows some key principles that regulate editors on their work as revisioners. While they help editors foster a set of ethical standards for editing, they also ensure that the content of the writeup itself is beneficial: it can serve its purpose. The following are the principles of editing and the key questions that you might want to ask yourself in consideration:
From the word itself, the writeup must be clear. In what sense? In the skill of writing, clarity may be straightforward, but it takes a lot of work for us to make a writeup that is easy to understand.
We are confounded with various writing guidelines and things to integrate into our writing. This condition takes us away from the principle of clarity.
The rule of thumb here, though, is this: clear your desk (translate: mind), set your mind on your ultimate writing goal (translate: main idea), and keep it as apparent as possible in your writing. In a broader explanation, you have to set aside other writing endeavors – choosing complex words, forming lots of paragraphs, introducing tropes and figurative language, and focusing on the important thing: constructing your thesis statement and using writing techniques that can make your idea more comprehensible.
2. Coherence
We have a lot to say, and the best thing to relay these ideas and thoughts is through writing.
When we have numerous things to rely upon, emotions may run high and take over our writing, causing us to make some “mess” and deviate from sharing our ideas neatly. Yes, you heard it right: writing does not just communicate our minds in whatever manner we want. This macro skill also demands us to write neatly – logically and lucidly.
In doing so, we have to maintain a logical and consistent flow of thoughts. It is like being one with nature: although we cannot understand it in its simplest form, we feel like everything goes fine because of its order and flow.
Coherence, the principle that talks about flow, also means the ideas are connected logically, and transitions from one idea to another are built well. Coherence can go a long way in a writeup, as it guides your readers from the start to the end of your writing, all while making sure that they have grasped the important points of your writing.
3. Grammar and Style
Grammar and style are probably the most sought-after principles, along with being the most tedious ones to handle in writing. These principles can be too technical and book-ish, and it takes years to be accurate grammatically and stylistically. You must learn various grammatical concepts and create your own writing style that follows certain conventions and tropes that you only apply to your writing endeavors.
However, we do not follow these principles for nothing. Aside from effective communication and clarity of expression, which have their own principles by the way, grammar reflects the uprightness and credibility of a writer. Since a written piece upholds quality and refinement, we do not want to risk the possibility of committing mistakes that will leave a disappointing impression on our readers.
In fact, it is generally believed that readers prefer written pieces that are well-written– those that are free from any grammatical lapses. Imagine if you committed those mistakes (especially if they are too common): you will definitely walk in shame and contact an essay editing service in no time!
Just like writing, the process of editing is scientific and objective. Contrary to popular belief, essay editing starts with a specific process and ends similarly. One process must be done before the other. Missing one process does not satisfy the rigor of editing.
In the simplest sense, all the editing processes we will discuss in this section are important and should not be overlooked. There are three editing stages: content editing, copy editing, and proofreading. Each stage plays a crucial role in the whole process, refining the document, spotting crucial errors, and maximizing readability and comprehension.
Content editing, with its other name substantive editing , is the initial stage of the editing process. At this stage, the editor concentrates on the writeup’s substance, structure, and overall quality. As we all know, nothing beats the comprehensiveness of a writeup’s content, and it gets even more comprehensive in the process of editing! You can edit my essay and do this editing stage if you want to experience the rigor.
The main aims of content editing are to ensure that the content is clear, coherent, and effectively conveys the intended message to the target audience. In short, it edits the content to maximize its capability to relay its intended purpose.
Key Sub-processes of Content Editing:
* Assess Overall Structure and Organization. Logical sequence and coherence are put in check on this sub-process.
* Evaluate Content and Clarity . The editor assures that the message or argument is well-defined and substantiated with appropriate evidence.
* Enhance Transitions and Signposting . The editor looks for means to enhance transitions between paragraphs and sections, making the text smoother and more reader-friendly. Aside from transition devices used in the first parts of each of the paragraphs, one may use signposts like topic sentences and headings to steer the reader through the content.
* Revise and Rewrite on Critical Content Issues . When deemed necessary, the editor may recommend or make significant revisions or rewrites to strengthen the content, eliminate redundancy, and enhance clarity.
This is the stage where it gets a bit technical for editors. Copy editing is the second stage of the entire editing process and focuses on the technical elements of the text. It concerns checking for grammatical and punctuation errors and ensuring consistent language usage, style, and compliance with a specific style guide. Copy editing’s main goal is to enhance the readability and correctness of the text, as well as establish the text’s credibility and trustworthiness.
Key Sub-processes of Copy Editing:
* Grammar and Punctuation . The editor implements grammar checks for spelling errors or other grammatical errors, including but not limited to subject-verb agreement, verb tense, and sentence structure. The text’s mechanics, or checking punctuation marks, may also be a focus for editing.
* Spelling and Usage . Spelling mistakes and inconsistencies in word usage (per the type of English one is using) are identified and corrected. Editors catch errors with redundant words, word count, body paragraphs, and passive voice.
* Capitalization and Formatting . The editor verifies that capitalization, headings, and formatting are uniform and appropriate to the type of writing.
* Fact-Checking . This sub-section ensures the accuracy of data, facts, figures, and references. The editor cross-references information with trustworthy sources and flags any instances of plagiarism and incorrect referencing.
* Style and Clarity . Editors persevere to improve sentence structure, eliminate vagueness, and enhance text readability.
This is the final stage of the editing process and is focused on scanning the document for “crumbs” left during the previous two stages– minor errors and inconsistencies. It is the last opportunity for the editor to catch any remaining typos, formatting issues, or other small mistakes before the document is brought to finality.
Key Sub-processes of Proofreading:
*Final Grammar and Spelling Check . The editor conducts a final review to identify and correct any grammatical or spelling errors that may have been overlooked. The final draft has an immaculate paragraph structure that's free of unnecessary words, grammar mistakes, or sentence fragments.
*Formatting and Layout . This step guarantees that the document adheres to consistent formatting, including margins, fonts, and spacing.
*Page Numbers and Table of Contents. The editor confirms that page numbers, footnotes, and the table of contents are correct and properly formatted.
* Hyperlinks and References . For digital documents, the editor checks that hyperlinks are functional and correctly correspond to the anchor text. They also ensure that references and citations are correct.
*Overall Readability . Finally, the editor scans the entire document one last time to identify any minimal errors, inconsistencies, or issues that might have been missed in previous stages.
Now that you are familiar with the three main stages of editing essays– content editing, copy editing, and proofreading, we are confident that you may now have an understanding of how an entire editing process may come into play. The best thing is that you may take off your editing journey without being too pressured to follow a certain blueprint.
Yes, you read it correctly: you can craft your own editing process. Just ensure that you capture every essence of the three main stages. To provide you with a guide, the following is a 7-point checklist that you may use to edit your essay.
This table is a synthesis of everything we discussed in the three stages of editing.
Stages of Editing | Tasks |
---|---|
Review Content | Read through the document to understand its structure and content. |
Organize and Clarify | Improve clarity and logical flow of ideas. |
Check for Consistency | Ensure uniform language, formatting, and style. |
Revise and Rewrite | Conduct content changes for clarity and accuracy. |
Correct Grammar and Punctuation | Fix grammar and punctuation lapses. |
Fact-Check | Ascertain the veracity of facts and references. |
Proofread | Conduct a final review for minimal errors in grammar, spelling, and formatting. |
One may definitely follow a guideline like the one above, but an essay revision service can do so much more. At Studyfy, you can avail of its high-quality writing services, where a roster of competent writers and editors completely transform a writing prompt into a creative masterpiece– one that adheres to the perfect style, formatting, and instructions.
Enjoy Studyfy’s no-mark-up scheme and affordable price range without worrying about the finished product’s reliability and readability– quality is a top priority, indeed. How to edit an essay well: sorted!
Essays are pieces of writing that discuss various topics and hold different functions depending on the writing prompt, purpose, and audience, among others. Given its eclectic nature, essays can be tricky to edit. Some principles on how to edit an essay may not be as important in some types, and some steps are as important as others.
We know the difficulty that you might contend with in editing different forms of essays, so we are here to help you by providing a cheat sheet on the common essay types and some techniques on how to edit them.
Reflective essay.
How to Write a Reflective Essay ? This essay involves self-introspection and analysis.Similar to a narrative essay, the goal of this essay type is to internalize and explore their thoughts and narrate a personal experience to readers who are likewise experiencing it.
Self-Reflection Enhancemen
Argument Strengthening
Clarity and Information Flow Enhancement
Storytelling Focusing while Editing Essays
Persuasion Intensification and How to Edit Essay
How can editing help me ace my writing assignments if it’s another burden to do.
Editing may be a tough act to do after writing, but it can be a walk in the park if you master the skill. Practice it continuously and be devoted (translate: consistent) to doing it until you no longer find it difficult and laborious.
You can always simplify your editing routine when time is running out. Editing essays can be as simple as having three pointers: (a) Checking for major grammar lapses; (b) Evaluating content based on its clarity and coherence; and (c) Checking for formatting guidelines.
In connection with the previous question, you may opt to use a personalized editing routine and that includes considering one element over the others. You may allot a big remainder of your time editing that element, but always ensure that you edit the important things on a text, no matter how focused you are on a particular element.
I probably can think of a scenario where you are asking a question like this: “Can somebody write my paper and edit it? This is way too much for me!” While writing and editing are intertwined, and we have no means of skipping them, writing and editing services like Studyfy can finish the work for you.
Created personally for you and your writing needs, these services are strong with competent and reliable writers who can go the extra mile in finishing your writeups while adhering to the intended style, format, and content.
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This resource covers process and strategy, not correctness rules. For help there, see our many resources on grammar, mechanics , and punctuation .
There are multiple levels of editing, and terminology surrounding editing is often used interchangeably and fluidly. These levels have some overlap between each other, rather than being totally discrete stages; similarly, developmental and substantive editing are more closely related to the "revision" step of the writing process. The four editing levels are:
In general, writers should follow this list down in order when revising and editing, from higher order to lower order concerns (in other words, from bigger or more impactful issues to smaller and less impactful issues).
While many writers edit alone at some point during the process, many writers also edit with a partner or writing group. Working with others is strongly recommended when editing; typically, this stage of the writing process comes last or close to last, meaning that writers are more likely to overlook mistakes or potential opportunities (because they have been working on the text for so long). It can be hard for writers to imagine other possibilities beyond what they have already written. A partner or group brings fresh perspective and a real audience who can offer feedback and tell the writer more about what it's like to read their writing.
If you're intrigued by the idea of a writing group but not sure where to start, you might check out these resources:
When you're ready to edit, it's important to start with higher order concerns and move down to lower order concerns (as stated above). For higher order concerns, see the editing and revision tips on our Organization and Structure page. For lower order concerns (and sometimes higher order concerns — you might realize something about organization while reading carefully for sentence level issues!), here's a list of strategies that our tutors recommend in sessions with graduate writers. They're usually adaptable to different preferences you might have about working digitally vs. on paper, or working alone vs. with a partner or group. Be creative to find what works for you!
Often, graduate students will be writing or editing with some type of feedback. This could be from peers in a class, from an instructor or mentor, or from a peer reviewer at a conference or journal. If you're in this situation, please see our resources on writing with feedback for more strategies and tips.
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There are times when you just want to write without worrying about every grammar or spelling convention. The online proofreader immediately finds all of your errors. This allows you to concentrate on the bigger picture. You’ll be 100% confident that your writing won’t affect your grade.
The proofreading process is your last chance to catch any errors in your writing before you submit it. A proofreader makes sure your spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are reviewed and fixed. This can be done automatically by an AI-powered tool like the one at the top of this page or by a real human. Both options have their advantages, so pick the one that suits you most.
✔ Fix problems with commonly confused words, like affect vs. effect, which vs. that and who vs. that.
✔ Catch words that sound similar but aren’t, like their vs. they’re, your vs. you’re.
✔ Check your punctuation to avoid errors with dashes and hyphens, commas, apostrophes, and more.
✔ Avoid sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement errors, and problems with parallelism.
The online proofreader.
It’s really straightforward. Just paste the text into the tool. All your errors will now be underlined in red. You can hover over these mistakes to see how they can be addressed. If you agree, just click on the button “Fix all errors,” and your mistakes will be fixed instantly!
Upload your entire document first. Choose the pages you want proofread, the extra services you want to use, and the deadline. Then fill in some key details like your field of study so that we can find you the best proofreader. When you’re done, you pay for your order, and we make sure that your writing is checked by a proofreader. You’ll be contacted when the job is done!
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🤖 Two ways | AI-powered or human |
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✅Corrects | Grammar, spelling & punctuation |
🗣️ Dialects | UK & US English |
Ask our team.
Want to contact us directly? No problem. We are always here for you.
Our support team is here to help you daily via chat, WhatsApp, email, or phone between 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. CET.
Yes! Our personal statement editors can help you reduce your word count by up to 25%. You can choose to receive this feedback through direct edits or suggestions in comments – just select your choice when you upload your personal statement.
Our APA experts default to APA 7 for editing and formatting. For the Citation Editing Service you are able to choose between APA 6 and 7.
It is not necessary to reserve a time slot for your edit. As soon as your document is ready to be proofread, you can upload it at any time via our website . Based on your chosen deadline, our editor(s) will then proofread your document within 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days.
If you are unsure about the availability of our services or are planning to upload a very large document (>13,000 words) with a 24 hour deadline, we recommend that you contact us beforehand via chat or email .
Scribbr is following the guidelines announced by the WHO (World Health Organization). As an online platform, all our services remain available, and we will continue to help students as usual.
Can I still place an order? Will my order be completed within the deadline? Yes, you can still place orders and orders will be delivered within the agreed upon deadline. Scribbr is an online platform – our proofreading & editing services are provided by editors working remotely from all over the world. This means Scribbr can guarantee that we will process your order with the same diligence and professionalism as always. The same holds true for our Plagiarism Checker .
Can I still contact customer support? Yes. Our support team is available from 09.00 to 23.00 CET and happy to answer any questions you might have!
Yes, if your document is longer than 20,000 words, you will get a sample of approximately 2,000 words. This sample edit gives you a first impression of the editor’s editing style and a chance to ask questions and give feedback.
You will receive the sample edit within 12 hours after placing your order. You then have 24 hours to let us know if you’re happy with the sample or if there’s something you would like the editor to do differently.
Read more about how the sample edit works
When you upload a large document (20,000+ words), we will ask your editor to send a sample edit of approximately 2,000 words as soon as possible. This sample edit gives you a first impression of your editor’s editing style and what you can expect from the service. You will receive it within 12 hours after uploading your order.
We always aim to make you 100% happy, and Proofreading & Editing is a complex service. We want to make sure that our editing style meets your expectations before the editor improves your entire document.
Our editors are trained to follow Scribbr’s academic style . However, your preferences might deviate from our conventions. The sample edit gives you the chance to provide feedback – you can let us know if you’re happy with the sample or if there’s something you would like the editor to do differently.
Once your editor has completed your sample edit, you will receive a notification via email. You have 24 hours to reply to this email and provide us with feedback. If we receive your feedback in time, your editor will go the extra mile and adjust the edit according to your input.
Give us feedback that will help your editor meet your requirements. For example:
The Structure and Clarity Check can only be purchased in conjunction with Proofreading & Editing . Providing feedback on structure and clarity requires extensive knowledge of the text, which the editor acquires while proofreading and editing your text.
However, our Paper Formatting Service, Citation Editing Service and Plagiarism Checker can be purchased separately.
Yes, Scribbr will proofread the summary in another language as well.
Who will proofread my summary?
If your document contains a summary in a different language, we will send this part to another editor who is a native speaker of that language. The editor will check your summary, applying our standard Proofreading & Editing service.
If you ordered any additional services, such as the Structure Check or Clarity Check, the editor will not apply them to your summary. This is because the summary is a translation of your abstract – you already receive Structure and Clarity feedback on the text in the original language. Therefore, when proofreading your summary, the editor will focus on making sure your language and style is correct.
How does it work?
We will create a new assignment within your order and send you a confirmation email. This also means that you will receive a separate email/SMS notification from us when the editor has finished proofreading your summary. Once your summary is proofread, you can download it via your Scribbr account and read the editor’s feedback.
Yes, we can provide a certificate of proofreading.
As soon as the editor delivers the edit, you can email us at [email protected] to request a certificate.
Please indicate the following in your email:
We will create a PDF certificate and email it to you as soon as possible.
Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:
Yes, when you accept all changes and delete all comments your document is ready to be handed in.
How to accept all changes:
How to remove all comments:
When you’ve finished this, others will no longer be able to see the changes made by the editor.
Yes, in the order process you can indicate your preference for American, British, or Australian English .
If you don’t choose one, your editor will follow the style of English you currently use. If your editor has any questions about this, we will contact you.
Yes, you can upload your thesis in sections.
We try our best to ensure that the same editor checks all the different sections of your thesis. When you upload a new file, our system recognizes you as a returning customer, and we immediately contact the editor who helped you before.
However, we cannot guarantee that the same editor will be available. Your chances are higher if
Please note that the shorter your deadline is, the bigger the risk that your previous editor is not available.
If your previous editor isn’t available, then we will inform you immediately and look for another qualified editor. Fear not! Every Scribbr editor follows the Scribbr Improvement Model and will deliver high-quality work.
However, every editor has a slightly different editing style, so you may notice small inconsistencies in editing choices. As with every proofreading order, be sure to carefully review your editor’s changes and suggestions as you finalize your text to ensure that everything is as you want it.
The fastest turnaround time is 12 hours.
You can upload your document at any time and choose between four deadlines:
At Scribbr, we promise to make every customer 100% happy with the service we offer. Our philosophy: Your complaint is always justified – no denial, no doubts.
Our customer support team is here to find the solution that helps you the most, whether that’s a free new edit or a refund for the service.
Every Scribbr order comes with our award-winning Proofreading & Editing service , which combines two important stages of the revision process.
For a more comprehensive edit, you can add a Structure Check or Clarity Check to your order. With these building blocks, you can customize the kind of feedback you receive.
You might be familiar with a different set of editing terms. To help you understand what you can expect at Scribbr, we created this table:
Types of editing | Available at Scribbr? |
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| This is the “proofreading” in Scribbr’s standard service. It can only be selected in combination with editing. |
| This is the “editing” in Scribbr’s standard service. It can only be selected in combination with proofreading. |
| Select the Structure Check and Clarity Check to receive a comprehensive edit equivalent to a line edit. |
| This kind of editing involves heavy rewriting and restructuring. Our editors cannot help with this. |
View an example
Scribbr not only specializes in proofreading and editing texts in English , but also in several other languages . This way, we help out students from all over the world.
As a global academic writing proofreading service, we work with professional editors – all native speakers – who edit in the following languages :
This way, you can also have your academic writing proofread and edited in your second language!
Please note that we do not offer Finnish proofreading, but students can still upload English papers on scribbr.fi .
Yes, regardless of the deadline you choose, our editors can proofread your document during weekends and holidays.
Example: If you select the 12-hour service on Saturday, you will receive your edited document back within 12 hours on Sunday.
The footnotes are not automatically included in the word count.
If you want the language errors in your footnotes to be corrected by the editor, you can indicate this in step 3 of the upload process . The words in the footnotes are then automatically added to the total word count.
To keep our prices competitive, we do not offer a free trial edit. However, if your document is longer than 30,000 words, we are happy to provide you with a sample edit of 2,000 words to ensure you are satisfied with the editor’s editing style.
Rest assured, our customers are very satisfied with our proofreading services. We’re proud that they have rated us with an excellent 4.6 on Trustpilot. In the unlikely event that you have a less positive experience, we’ll solve that with our 100% happiness guarantee !
After your thesis has been edited , you will receive an email with a link to download the edited document.
The editor has made changes to your document using ‘ Track Changes ’ in Word. This means that you only have to accept or ignore the changes that are made in the text one by one.
It is also possible to accept all changes at once. However, we strongly advise you not to do so for the following reasons:
We have written a manual in which we explain step by step how ‘Track Changes’ works.
Check out an example
Our editors are very experienced and will do their utmost to correct all errors in your thesis .
However, with our current rates, an editor can only check your thesis once. This may cause an editor to overlook an error. We can therefore not guarantee that your thesis is 100% error free after you have had your thesis edited.
The editor uses ‘Track Changes’ in Word when editing your thesis.
Don’t know how this works? Then read the following guide in which we explain step by step how ‘Track Changes’ works.
No, we do not provide you with a clean copy. You will always receive a file edited with tracked changes .
We do this for two main reasons:
All Scribbr editors are language experts with interests in different subject areas.
You can indicate your field of study when you upload your document . We’ll make sure that the editor who proofreads your work is familiar with your discipline and its specialist vocabulary.
These are the fields of study you can choose from, and examples of the main subjects in each field:
Editors don’t have to be experts in the content of your paper, but they do know how to present it in the best way possible! Our goal is to improve your writing and give you feedback on the readability, structure, logic, and clarity of your text. We know from experience that the most effective editors are specialists in language and academic writing.
We’ve carefully selected and trained all of our editors to proofread theses and other academic documents. Once they’re qualified, we continue to carefully monitor their work to make sure we always deliver the highest quality .
A comprehensive guide to essay writing.
Essay writing is a crucial skill that students need to master in order to succeed academically. Whether you’re a high school student working on a history paper or a college student tackling a critical analysis essay, having a solid understanding of the essay writing process is essential.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the essential tips and tricks that will help you improve your essay writing skills. From generating ideas and organizing your thoughts to crafting a strong thesis statement and polishing your final draft, we’ve got you covered.
Not only that, but we’ll also provide you with useful templates that you can use as a framework for your essays. These templates will help you structure your writing, stay focused on your main argument, and ensure that your essay flows smoothly from one point to the next.
Essay writing can be a challenging task for many students, but with the right guidance and tips, you can improve your writing skills and produce high-quality essays. In this ultimate guide, we will provide you with valuable advice, tricks, and templates to help you excel in your essay writing endeavors.
1. Understand the Prompt: Before you start writing your essay, make sure you fully understand the prompt or question. Analyze the requirements and key points that need to be addressed in your essay.
2. Create an Outline: Organize your ideas and thoughts by creating a detailed outline for your essay. This will help you structure your arguments and ensure a logical flow of information.
3. Research Thoroughly: Conduct extensive research on your topic to gather relevant information and evidence to support your arguments. Use credible sources and cite them properly in your essay.
4. Write Clearly and Concisely: Avoid using jargon or complex language in your essay. Write in a clear and concise manner to convey your ideas effectively to the reader.
5. Proofread and Edit: Before submitting your essay, make sure to proofread and edit it carefully. Check for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and ensure that your essay flows cohesively.
By following these ultimate essay writing guides, you can enhance your writing skills and produce outstanding essays that will impress your instructors and peers. Practice regularly and seek feedback to continuously improve your writing abilities.
1. Understand the Assignment: Before you start writing, make sure you fully understand the assignment guidelines and requirements. If you have any doubts, clarify them with your instructor.
2. Conduct Thorough Research: Gather relevant sources and information to support your arguments. Make sure to cite your sources properly and use credible sources.
3. Create a Strong Thesis Statement: Your thesis statement should clearly outline the main point of your essay and guide your readers on what to expect.
4. Organize Your Ideas: Create an outline to organize your thoughts and ensure a logical flow of ideas in your essay.
5. Write Clearly and Concisely: Use clear, concise language and avoid unnecessary jargon or complex sentences. Be direct and to the point.
6. Revise and Edit: Always proofread your essay for grammar and spelling errors. Revise your work to ensure coherence and clarity.
7. Seek Feedback: Ask a peer or instructor to review your essay and provide constructive feedback for improvement.
8. Use Proper Formatting: Follow the formatting guidelines provided by your instructor, such as font size, margins, and citation style.
9. Stay Focused: Keep your essay focused on the main topic and avoid going off on tangents. Stick to your thesis statement.
10. Practice, Practice, Practice: The more you practice writing essays, the better you will get at it. Keep practicing and refining your writing skills.
Improving your writing skills can be a challenging but rewarding process. Here are some tricks to help you become a better writer:
1. Read widely: Reading a variety of genres and styles can help you develop your own voice and writing style.
2. Practice regularly: The more you write, the better you will become. Set aside time each day to practice writing.
3. Get feedback: Share your writing with others and ask for constructive criticism. Feedback can help you identify areas for improvement.
4. Study grammar and punctuation: Good writing requires a solid understanding of grammar and punctuation rules. Take the time to study and practice these essential skills.
5. Edit and revise: Writing is a process, and editing is an important part of that process. Take the time to edit and revise your work to improve clarity and coherence.
6. Experiment with different writing techniques: Try experimenting with different writing techniques, such as using metaphors, similes, or descriptive language, to enhance your writing.
7. Stay inspired: Find inspiration in the world around you. Whether it’s nature, art, or literature, draw inspiration from your surroundings to fuel your writing.
By following these tricks and practicing regularly, you can improve your writing skills and become a more confident and effective writer.
When it comes to writing an essay, having a clear and structured template can be incredibly helpful. Here are some step-by-step essay writing templates that you can use to guide you through the process:
When it comes to writing a top-notch essay, it’s essential to follow expert advice to ensure your work stands out. Here are some key tips to help you elevate your writing:
1. Start with a strong thesis statement that clearly outlines your main argument.
2. Conduct thorough research to support your points with credible sources.
3. Organize your thoughts logically and ensure your essay flows smoothly from one point to the next.
4. Use a variety of sentence structures and vocabulary to keep your writing engaging.
5. Proofread and edit your essay carefully to eliminate errors and refine your arguments.
By following these expert tips, you can take your essay writing skills to the next level and produce work that is both informative and compelling.
When it comes to improving your essay writing skills, there are a variety of resources available to help you enhance your process. Here are some valuable resources that can aid you in becoming a more effective and efficient writer:
By taking advantage of these resources, you can enhance your essay writing process and become a more skilled and confident writer.
How to master the art of writing expository essays and captivate your audience, convenient and reliable source to purchase college essays online, step-by-step guide to crafting a powerful literary analysis essay, unlock success with a comprehensive business research paper example guide, unlock your writing potential with writers college – transform your passion into profession, “unlocking the secrets of academic success – navigating the world of research papers in college”, master the art of sociological expression – elevate your writing skills in sociology.
Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:
How to prepare to write an essay, how to edit an essay, how to share and publish your essays, how to get essay writing help, how to find essay writing inspiration, resources for teaching essay writing.
Essays, short prose compositions on a particular theme or topic, are the bread and butter of academic life. You write them in class, for homework, and on standardized tests to show what you know. Unlike other kinds of academic writing (like the research paper) and creative writing (like short stories and poems), essays allow you to develop your original thoughts on a prompt or question. Essays come in many varieties: they can be expository (fleshing out an idea or claim), descriptive, (explaining a person, place, or thing), narrative (relating a personal experience), or persuasive (attempting to win over a reader). This guide is a collection of dozens of links about academic essay writing that we have researched, categorized, and annotated in order to help you improve your essay writing.
Essays are different from other forms of writing; in turn, there are different kinds of essays. This section contains general resources for getting to know the essay and its variants. These resources introduce and define the essay as a genre, and will teach you what to expect from essay-based assessments.
Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab
One of the most trusted academic writing sites, Purdue OWL provides a concise introduction to the four most common types of academic essays.
"The Essay: History and Definition" (ThoughtCo)
This snappy article from ThoughtCo talks about the origins of the essay and different kinds of essays you might be asked to write.
"What Is An Essay?" Video Lecture (Coursera)
The University of California at Irvine's free video lecture, available on Coursera, tells you everything you need to know about the essay.
Wikipedia Article on the "Essay"
Wikipedia's article on the essay is comprehensive, providing both English-language and global perspectives on the essay form. Learn about the essay's history, forms, and styles.
"Understanding College and Academic Writing" (Aims Online Writing Lab)
This list of common academic writing assignments (including types of essay prompts) will help you know what to expect from essay-based assessments.
Before you start writing your essay, you need to figure out who you're writing for (audience), what you're writing about (topic/theme), and what you're going to say (argument and thesis). This section contains links to handouts, chapters, videos and more to help you prepare to write an essay.
"Audience" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)
This handout provides questions you can ask yourself to determine the audience for an academic writing assignment. It also suggests strategies for fitting your paper to your intended audience.
"Purpose, Audience, Tone, and Content" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)
This extensive book chapter from Writing for Success , available online through Minnesota Libraries Publishing, is followed by exercises to try out your new pre-writing skills.
"Determining Audience" (Aims Online Writing Lab)
This guide from a community college's writing center shows you how to know your audience, and how to incorporate that knowledge in your thesis statement.
"Know Your Audience" ( Paper Rater Blog)
This short blog post uses examples to show how implied audiences for essays differ. It reminds you to think of your instructor as an observer, who will know only the information you pass along.
"Research Tutorial: Developing Your Topic" (YouTube)
Take a look at this short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to understand the basics of developing a writing topic.
"How to Choose a Paper Topic" (WikiHow)
This simple, step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through choosing a paper topic. It starts with a detailed description of brainstorming and ends with strategies to refine your broad topic.
"How to Read an Assignment: Moving From Assignment to Topic" (Harvard College Writing Center)
Did your teacher give you a prompt or other instructions? This guide helps you understand the relationship between an essay assignment and your essay's topic.
"Guidelines for Choosing a Topic" (CliffsNotes)
This study guide from CliffsNotes both discusses how to choose a topic and makes a useful distinction between "topic" and "thesis."
"Argument" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)
Not sure what "argument" means in the context of academic writing? This page from the University of North Carolina is a good place to start.
"The Essay Guide: Finding an Argument" (Study Hub)
This handout explains why it's important to have an argument when beginning your essay, and provides tools to help you choose a viable argument.
"Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument" (University of Iowa)
This page from the University of Iowa's Writing Center contains exercises through which you can develop and refine your argument and thesis statement.
"Developing a Thesis" (Harvard College Writing Center)
This page from Harvard's Writing Center collates some helpful dos and don'ts of argumentative writing, from steps in constructing a thesis to avoiding vague and confrontational thesis statements.
"Suggestions for Developing Argumentative Essays" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)
This page offers concrete suggestions for each stage of the essay writing process, from topic selection to drafting and editing.
"Outlines" (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via YouTube)
This short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how to group your ideas into paragraphs or sections to begin the outlining process.
"Essay Outline" (Univ. of Washington Tacoma)
This two-page handout by a university professor simply defines the parts of an essay and then organizes them into an example outline.
"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)
Purdue OWL gives examples of diverse outline strategies on this page, including the alphanumeric, full sentence, and decimal styles.
"Outlining" (Harvard College Writing Center)
Once you have an argument, according to this handout, there are only three steps in the outline process: generalizing, ordering, and putting it all together. Then you're ready to write!
"Writing Essays" (Plymouth Univ.)
This packet, part of Plymouth University's Learning Development series, contains descriptions and diagrams relating to the outlining process.
"How to Write A Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure" (Criticalthinkingtutorials.com via YouTube)
This longer video tutorial gives an overview of how to structure your essay in order to support your argument or thesis. It is part of a longer course on academic writing hosted on Udemy.
Now that you've chosen and refined your topic and created an outline, use these resources to complete the writing process. Most essays contain introductions (which articulate your thesis statement), body paragraphs, and conclusions. Transitions facilitate the flow from one paragraph to the next so that support for your thesis builds throughout the essay. Sources and citations show where you got the evidence to support your thesis, which ensures that you avoid plagiarism.
"Introductions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)
This page identifies the role of the introduction in any successful paper, suggests strategies for writing introductions, and warns against less effective introductions.
"How to Write A Good Introduction" (Michigan State Writing Center)
Beginning with the most common missteps in writing introductions, this guide condenses the essentials of introduction composition into seven points.
"The Introductory Paragraph" (ThoughtCo)
This blog post from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming focuses on ways to grab your reader's attention at the beginning of your essay.
"Introductions and Conclusions" (Univ. of Toronto)
This guide from the University of Toronto gives advice that applies to writing both introductions and conclusions, including dos and don'ts.
"How to Write Better Essays: No One Does Introductions Properly" ( The Guardian )
This news article interviews UK professors on student essay writing; they point to introductions as the area that needs the most improvement.
"Writing an Effective Thesis Statement" (YouTube)
This short, simple video tutorial from a college composition instructor at Tulsa Community College explains what a thesis statement is and what it does.
"Thesis Statement: Four Steps to a Great Essay" (YouTube)
This fantastic tutorial walks you through drafting a thesis, using an essay prompt on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an example.
"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (WikiHow)
This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through coming up with, writing, and editing a thesis statement. It invites you think of your statement as a "working thesis" that can change.
"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (Univ. of Indiana Bloomington)
Ask yourself the questions on this page, part of Indiana Bloomington's Writing Tutorial Services, when you're writing and refining your thesis statement.
"Writing Tips: Thesis Statements" (Univ. of Illinois Center for Writing Studies)
This page gives plentiful examples of good to great thesis statements, and offers questions to ask yourself when formulating a thesis statement.
"Body Paragraph" (Brightstorm)
This module of a free online course introduces you to the components of a body paragraph. These include the topic sentence, information, evidence, and analysis.
"Strong Body Paragraphs" (Washington Univ.)
This handout from Washington's Writing and Research Center offers in-depth descriptions of the parts of a successful body paragraph.
"Guide to Paragraph Structure" (Deakin Univ.)
This handout is notable for color-coding example body paragraphs to help you identify the functions various sentences perform.
"Writing Body Paragraphs" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)
The exercises in this section of Writing for Success will help you practice writing good body paragraphs. It includes guidance on selecting primary support for your thesis.
"The Writing Process—Body Paragraphs" (Aims Online Writing Lab)
The information and exercises on this page will familiarize you with outlining and writing body paragraphs, and includes links to more information on topic sentences and transitions.
"The Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)
This blog post discusses body paragraphs in the context of one of the most common academic essay types in secondary schools.
"Transitions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)
This page from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains what a transition is, and how to know if you need to improve your transitions.
"Using Transitions Effectively" (Washington Univ.)
This handout defines transitions, offers tips for using them, and contains a useful list of common transitional words and phrases grouped by function.
"Transitions" (Aims Online Writing Lab)
This page compares paragraphs without transitions to paragraphs with transitions, and in doing so shows how important these connective words and phrases are.
"Transitions in Academic Essays" (Scribbr)
This page lists four techniques that will help you make sure your reader follows your train of thought, including grouping similar information and using transition words.
"Transitions" (El Paso Community College)
This handout shows example transitions within paragraphs for context, and explains how transitions improve your essay's flow and voice.
"Make Your Paragraphs Flow to Improve Writing" (ThoughtCo)
This blog post, another from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming, talks about transitions and other strategies to improve your essay's overall flow.
"Transition Words" (smartwords.org)
This handy word bank will help you find transition words when you're feeling stuck. It's grouped by the transition's function, whether that is to show agreement, opposition, condition, or consequence.
"Parts of An Essay: Conclusions" (Brightstorm)
This module of a free online course explains how to conclude an academic essay. It suggests thinking about the "3Rs": return to hook, restate your thesis, and relate to the reader.
"Essay Conclusions" (Univ. of Maryland University College)
This overview of the academic essay conclusion contains helpful examples and links to further resources for writing good conclusions.
"How to End An Essay" (WikiHow)
This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) by an English Ph.D. walks you through writing a conclusion, from brainstorming to ending with a flourish.
"Ending the Essay: Conclusions" (Harvard College Writing Center)
This page collates useful strategies for writing an effective conclusion, and reminds you to "close the discussion without closing it off" to further conversation.
"Research and Citation Resources" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)
Purdue OWL streamlines information about the three most common referencing styles (MLA, Chicago, and APA) and provides examples of how to cite different resources in each system.
EasyBib: Free Bibliography Generator
This online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. Be sure to select your resource type before clicking the "cite it" button.
CitationMachine
Like EasyBib, this online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style.
Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA)
Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of MLA referencing rules. Order through the link above, or check to see if your library has a copy.
Chicago Manual of Style
Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of Chicago referencing rules. You can take a look at the table of contents, then choose to subscribe or start a free trial.
"What is Plagiarism?" (plagiarism.org)
This nonprofit website contains numerous resources for identifying and avoiding plagiarism, and reminds you that even common activities like copying images from another website to your own site may constitute plagiarism.
"Plagiarism" (University of Oxford)
This interactive page from the University of Oxford helps you check for plagiarism in your work, making it clear how to avoid citing another person's work without full acknowledgement.
"Avoiding Plagiarism" (MIT Comparative Media Studies)
This quick guide explains what plagiarism is, what its consequences are, and how to avoid it. It starts by defining three words—quotation, paraphrase, and summary—that all constitute citation.
"Harvard Guide to Using Sources" (Harvard Extension School)
This comprehensive website from Harvard brings together articles, videos, and handouts about referencing, citation, and plagiarism.
Grammarly contains tons of helpful grammar and writing resources, including a free tool to automatically scan your essay to check for close affinities to published work.
Noplag is another popular online tool that automatically scans your essay to check for signs of plagiarism. Simply copy and paste your essay into the box and click "start checking."
Once you've written your essay, you'll want to edit (improve content), proofread (check for spelling and grammar mistakes), and finalize your work until you're ready to hand it in. This section brings together tips and resources for navigating the editing process.
"Writing a First Draft" (Academic Help)
This is an introduction to the drafting process from the site Academic Help, with tips for getting your ideas on paper before editing begins.
"Editing and Proofreading" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)
This page provides general strategies for revising your writing. They've intentionally left seven errors in the handout, to give you practice in spotting them.
"How to Proofread Effectively" (ThoughtCo)
This article from ThoughtCo, along with those linked at the bottom, help describe common mistakes to check for when proofreading.
"7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful" (SmartBlogger)
This blog post emphasizes the importance of powerful, concise language, and reminds you that even your personal writing heroes create clunky first drafts.
"Editing Tips for Effective Writing" (Univ. of Pennsylvania)
On this page from Penn's International Relations department, you'll find tips for effective prose, errors to watch out for, and reminders about formatting.
"Editing the Essay" (Harvard College Writing Center)
This article, the first of two parts, gives you applicable strategies for the editing process. It suggests reading your essay aloud, removing any jargon, and being unafraid to remove even "dazzling" sentences that don't belong.
"Guide to Editing and Proofreading" (Oxford Learning Institute)
This handout from Oxford covers the basics of editing and proofreading, and reminds you that neither task should be rushed.
In addition to plagiarism-checkers, Grammarly has a plug-in for your web browser that checks your writing for common mistakes.
After you've prepared, written, and edited your essay, you might want to share it outside the classroom. This section alerts you to print and web opportunities to share your essays with the wider world, from online writing communities and blogs to published journals geared toward young writers.
Go Teen Writers
Go Teen Writers is an online community for writers aged 13 - 19. It was founded by Stephanie Morrill, an author of contemporary young adult novels.
Tumblr is a blogging website where you can share your writing and interact with other writers online. It's easy to add photos, links, audio, and video components.
Writersky provides an online platform for publishing and reading other youth writers' work. Its current content is mostly devoted to fiction.
This teen literary journal publishes in print, on the web, and (more frequently), on a blog. It is committed to ensuring that "teens see their authentic experience reflected on its pages."
The Matador Review
This youth writing platform celebrates "alternative," unconventional writing. The link above will take you directly to the site's "submissions" page.
Teen Ink has a website, monthly newsprint magazine, and quarterly poetry magazine promoting the work of young writers.
The largest online reading platform, Wattpad enables you to publish your work and read others' work. Its inline commenting feature allows you to share thoughts as you read along.
Canvas Teen Literary Journal
This quarterly literary magazine is published for young writers by young writers. They accept many kinds of writing, including essays.
The Claremont Review
This biannual international magazine, first published in 1992, publishes poetry, essays, and short stories from writers aged 13 - 19.
Skipping Stones
This young writers magazine, founded in 1988, celebrates themes relating to ecological and cultural diversity. It publishes poems, photos, articles, and stories.
The Telling Room
This nonprofit writing center based in Maine publishes children's work on their website and in book form. The link above directs you to the site's submissions page.
Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards
This prestigious international writing contest for students in grades 7 - 12 has been committed to "supporting the future of creativity since 1923."
Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest
An annual essay contest on the theme of journalism and media, the Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest awards scholarships up to $1,000.
National YoungArts Foundation
Here, you'll find information on a government-sponsored writing competition for writers aged 15 - 18. The foundation welcomes submissions of creative nonfiction, novels, scripts, poetry, short story and spoken word.
Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest
With prompts on a different literary work each year, this competition from Signet Classics awards college scholarships up to $1,000.
"The Ultimate Guide to High School Essay Contests" (CollegeVine)
See this handy guide from CollegeVine for a list of more competitions you can enter with your academic essay, from the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Awards to the National High School Essay Contest by the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Whether you're struggling to write academic essays or you think you're a pro, there are workshops and online tools that can help you become an even better writer. Even the most seasoned writers encounter writer's block, so be proactive and look through our curated list of resources to combat this common frustration.
"Getting Started with Essay Writing" (Coursera)
Coursera offers lots of free, high-quality online classes taught by college professors. Here's one example, taught by instructors from the University of California Irvine.
"Writing and English" (Brightstorm)
Brightstorm's free video lectures are easy to navigate by topic. This unit on the parts of an essay features content on the essay hook, thesis, supporting evidence, and more.
"How to Write an Essay" (EdX)
EdX is another open online university course website with several two- to five-week courses on the essay. This one is geared toward English language learners.
Writer's Digest University
This renowned writers' website offers online workshops and interactive tutorials. The courses offered cover everything from how to get started through how to get published.
Writing.com
Signing up for this online writer's community gives you access to helpful resources as well as an international community of writers.
"Symptoms and Cures for Writer's Block" (Purdue OWL)
Purdue OWL offers a list of signs you might have writer's block, along with ways to overcome it. Consider trying out some "invention strategies" or ways to curb writing anxiety.
"Overcoming Writer's Block: Three Tips" ( The Guardian )
These tips, geared toward academic writing specifically, are practical and effective. The authors advocate setting realistic goals, creating dedicated writing time, and participating in social writing.
"Writing Tips: Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block" (Univ. of Illinois)
This page from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Center for Writing Studies acquaints you with strategies that do and do not work to overcome writer's block.
"Writer's Block" (Univ. of Toronto)
Ask yourself the questions on this page; if the answer is "yes," try out some of the article's strategies. Each question is accompanied by at least two possible solutions.
If you have essays to write but are short on ideas, this section's links to prompts, example student essays, and celebrated essays by professional writers might help. You'll find writing prompts from a variety of sources, student essays to inspire you, and a number of essay writing collections.
"50 Argumentative Essay Topics" (ThoughtCo)
Take a look at this list and the others ThoughtCo has curated for different kinds of essays. As the author notes, "a number of these topics are controversial and that's the point."
"401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing" ( New York Times )
This list (and the linked lists to persuasive and narrative writing prompts), besides being impressive in length, is put together by actual high school English teachers.
"SAT Sample Essay Prompts" (College Board)
If you're a student in the U.S., your classroom essay prompts are likely modeled on the prompts in U.S. college entrance exams. Take a look at these official examples from the SAT.
"Popular College Application Essay Topics" (Princeton Review)
This page from the Princeton Review dissects recent Common Application essay topics and discusses strategies for answering them.
"501 Writing Prompts" (DePaul Univ.)
This nearly 200-page packet, compiled by the LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team, is stuffed with writing prompts, example essays, and commentary.
"Topics in English" (Kibin)
Kibin is a for-pay essay help website, but its example essays (organized by topic) are available for free. You'll find essays on everything from A Christmas Carol to perseverance.
"Student Writing Models" (Thoughtful Learning)
Thoughtful Learning, a website that offers a variety of teaching materials, provides sample student essays on various topics and organizes them by grade level.
"Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)
In this blog post by a former professor of English and rhetoric, ThoughtCo brings together examples of five-paragraph essays and commentary on the form.
The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates (Amazon)
This collection of American essays spanning the twentieth century was compiled by award winning author and Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates.
The Best American Essays 2017 by Leslie Jamison (Amazon)
Leslie Jamison, the celebrated author of essay collection The Empathy Exams , collects recent, high-profile essays into a single volume.
The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (Amazon)
Documentary writer Phillip Lopate curates this historical overview of the personal essay's development, from the classical era to the present.
The White Album by Joan Didion (Amazon)
This seminal essay collection was authored by one of the most acclaimed personal essayists of all time, American journalist Joan Didion.
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (Amazon)
Read this famous essay collection by David Foster Wallace, who is known for his experimentation with the essay form. He pushed the boundaries of personal essay, reportage, and political polemic.
"50 Successful Harvard Application Essays" (Staff of the The Harvard Crimson )
If you're looking for examples of exceptional college application essays, this volume from Harvard's daily student newspaper is one of the best collections on the market.
Are you an instructor looking for the best resources for teaching essay writing? This section contains resources for developing in-class activities and student homework assignments. You'll find content from both well-known university writing centers and online writing labs.
"In-class Writing Exercises" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)
This page lists exercises related to brainstorming, organizing, drafting, and revising. It also contains suggestions for how to implement the suggested exercises.
"Teaching with Writing" (Univ. of Minnesota Center for Writing)
Instructions and encouragement for using "freewriting," one-minute papers, logbooks, and other write-to-learn activities in the classroom can be found here.
"Writing Worksheets" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)
Berkeley offers this bank of writing worksheets to use in class. They are nested under headings for "Prewriting," "Revision," "Research Papers" and more.
"Using Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism" (DePaul University)
Use these activities and worksheets from DePaul's Teaching Commons when instructing students on proper academic citation practices.
"Grammar and Punctuation Exercises" (Aims Online Writing Lab)
These five interactive online activities allow students to practice editing and proofreading. They'll hone their skills in correcting comma splices and run-ons, identifying fragments, using correct pronoun agreement, and comma usage.
"Student Interactives" (Read Write Think)
Read Write Think hosts interactive tools, games, and videos for developing writing skills. They can practice organizing and summarizing, writing poetry, and developing lines of inquiry and analysis.
This free website offers writing and grammar activities for all grade levels. The lessons are designed to be used both for large classes and smaller groups.
"Writing Activities and Lessons for Every Grade" (Education World)
Education World's page on writing activities and lessons links you to more free, online resources for learning how to "W.R.I.T.E.": write, revise, inform, think, and edit.
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Essay writing is a fundamental skill, a basic task, that is expected of those who choose to pursue their undergraduate and master’s degrees. It constitutes a key requirement for students to complete a given course credit. However, many students and early career researchers find themselves struggling with the challenge of organizing their thoughts into a coherent, engaging structure. This article is especially for those who see essay writing as a daunting task and face problems in presenting their work in an impactful way.
Read on as we delve into the basic elements of essay writing, outline key principles for organizing information, and cover some foundational features of writing essays.
Essays are written in a flowing and continuous pattern but with a structure of its own. An introduction, body and conclusion are integral to it. The key is to balance the amount and kind of information to be presented in each part. Various disciplines may have their own conventions or guidelines on the information to be provided in the introduction.
A clear articulation of the context and background of the study is important, as is the definition of key terms and an outline of specific models or theories used. Readers also need to know the significance of the study and its implications for further research. Most importantly, the thesis or the main proposition should be clearly presented.
The body of the essay is therefore organized into paragraphs that hold the main ideas and arguments and is presented and analyzed in a logical manner. Ideally, each paragraph of the body focuses on one main point or a distinct topic and must be supported by evidence and analysis. The concluding paragraph should bring back to the reader the key arguments, its significance and food for thought. It is best not to re-state all the points of the essay or introduce a new concept here.
In other words, certain general guidelines help structure the information in the essay. The information must flow logically with the context or the background information presented in the introductory part of the essay. The arguments are built organically where each paragraph in the body of the essay deals with a different point, yet closely linked to the para preceding and following it. Importantly, when writing essays, early career researchers must be careful in ensuring that each piece of information relates to the main thesis and is a building block to the arguments.
The structure of an essay can be determined by the kind of essay that is required.
Also known as the cause-and-effect approach, this is a straightforward way to structure an essay. In such essays, events are discussed sequentially, as they occurred from the earliest to the latest. A chronological structure is useful for discussing a series of events or processes such as historical analyses or narratives of events. The introduction should have the topic sentence. The body of the essay should follow a chorological progression with each para discussing a major aspect of that event with supporting evidence. It ends with a summarizing of the results of the events.
Where the essay focuses on a specific problem, the problem-methods-solutions structure can be used to organize the essay. This structure is ideal for essays that address complex issues. It starts with presenting the problem, the context, and thesis statement as introduction to the essay. The major part of the discussion which forms the body of the essay focuses on stating the problem and its significance, the author’s approach or methods adopted to address the problem along with its relevance, and accordingly proposing solution(s) to the identified problem. The concluding part offers a recap of the research problem, methods, and proposed solutions, emphasizing their significance and potential impact.
This structure of essay writing is ideally used when two or more key subjects require a comparison of ideas, theories, or phenomena. The three crucial elements, introduction, body, and conclusion, remain the same. The introduction presents the context and the thesis statement. The body of the essay seeks to focus on and highlight differences between the subjects, supported by evidence and analysis. The conclusion is used to summarize the key points of comparison and contrast, offering insights into the significance of the analysis.
Depending on how the subjects will be discussed, the body of the essay can be organized according to the block method or the alternating method. In the block method, one para discusses one subject and the next para the other subject. In the alternative method, both subjects are discussed in one para based on a particular topic or issue followed by the next para on another issue and so on.
An essay structure serves as a framework for presenting ideas coherently and logically. It comprises three crucial elements: an introduction that communicates the context, topic, and thesis statement; the body focusing on the main points and arguments supported with appropriate evidence followed by its analysis; and a conclusion that ties together the main points and its importance .
An essay structure well-defined essay structure enhances clarity, coherence, and readability, and is crucial for organizing ideas and arguments to effectively communicate key aspects of a chosen topic. It allows readers to better understand arguments presented and demonstrates the author’s ability to organize and present information systematically.
Yes, while expert recommend following an essay structure, early career researchers may choose how best to adapt standard essay structures to communicate and share their research in an impactful and engaging way. However, do keep in mind that deviating too far from established structures can hinder comprehension and weaken the overall effectiveness of the essay, By understanding the basic elements of essay writing and employing appropriate structures such as chronological, problem-methods-solutions, or compare and contrast, researchers can effectively organize their ideas and communicate their findings with clarity and precision.
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How to use ai to enhance your thesis.
We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.
Producing a thesis is a lot of work. You need to develop an original topic, conduct some research, comprehend your results, and then – as the most difficult task – write the thesis and make sure it is of excellent quality. Given the complexity of the process, it is no wonder that students get stressed when their thesis is due for submission. The good news is that AI tools can help enhance your thesis and ensure that you submit work that your professors will value. Here we explore some ways AI can boost your thesis writing process.
All dissertations require a comprehensive literature review that will introduce the topic and evaluate the literature in the area. However, getting hold of the relevant literature is not the easiest task. You may need to spend days browsing academic databases to locate books and articles on the topic. AI can help you speed up this process. In ChatGPT, you can install a plugin called ScholarAI that will list relevant literature in your chosen area. Whether your thesis is in engineering, medicine, business, or humanities, ScholarAI will have access to useful sources that you could consider when developing your literature review.
Once you have the relevant literature at hand, your next task will be to read through it, comprehend it, and organise it. This step is crucial before starting to write the literature review itself. A ChatGPT plugin that could help you with this task is AskYourPDF. The plugin allows you to upload a PDF, such as a journal article, and summarise its content. You could even ask it questions to enhance your understanding of the source at hand. By repeating this process for all sources you located, AI will help you understand the literature, organise its main points, and report it in your thesis.
Regardless of your area of study, your thesis will require describing a methodological approach you adopted in your research. Students often find methodologies confusing because they encompass various strategies and techniques that must be tailored to a specific research question. ChatGPT can act as a personal methodology tutor and help you out. ChatGPT has an extensive understanding of different methodologies – so, by describing your research in the chat, the AI tool can help you discern what methodology you are using and why. When prompted, it can even suggest how to report your methodology and what methodological aspects you should consider to have a well-developed methodology section.
Within your thesis, you will report quantitative or qualitative results – depending on your research's investigation. Your results will need to be understood in the context of your thesis and such understanding will require an interpretation based on the reviewed literature and adopted methodology. This may sound complex but AI can simplify the process for you. Paste your literature review and methodology section in ChatGPT and ask it to review it. Once done, explain your results to ChatGPT and ask it to interpret them in the context of your thesis. The tool will produce relevant insights that could spark your thinking about your results.
Your last step in the thesis-writing process will be to develop a discussion section. You will need to discuss aspects such as the strengths and limitations of your research and implications for the literature and real life. This is another section where ChatGPT can give relevant insights. Instruct it to brainstorm about strengths, limitations, and implications of your study and results to get ideas to start writing. However, be sure to cherry-pick only the best ideas that you could develop further as it is these ideas that will boost your thesis the most.
Writing a thesis is a complex process – however, it is a process that can be simplified and enhanced by AI. You can use ChatGPT for all aspects of your thesis, including the literature review, methodology, results, and discussion. By helping you locate and comprehend the literature, describe your methodology, understand your results, and gain insights into the strengths, limitations, and implications of your research, ChatGPT can enhance your thesis and help you produce a work that your supervisors will appreciate.
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Dna-based bacterial parasite uses completely new dna-editing method, its error rates are too high for safe use but might be improved..
John Timmer - Jun 26, 2024 7:31 pm UTC
While CRISPR is probably the most prominent gene-editing technology, there are others, some developed before and since. And people have been developing CRISPR variants to perform more specialized functions, like altering specific bases. In all of these cases, researchers are trying to balance a number of competing factors: convenience, flexibility, specificity and precision for the editing, low error rates, and so on.
So, having additional options for editing can be a good thing, enabling new ways of balancing those different needs. On Wednesday, a pair of papers in Nature describe a DNA-based parasite that moves itself around bacterial genomes through a mechanism that hasn't been previously described. It's nowhere near ready for use in humans, but it may have some distinctive features that make it worth further development.
Mobile genetic elements, commonly called transposons, are quite common in many species—they make up nearly half the sequences in the human genome, for example. They are indeed mobile, showing up in new locations throughout the genome, sometimes by cutting themselves out and hopping to new locations, other times by sending a copy out to a new place in the genome. For any of this to work, they need to have an enzyme that cuts DNA and specifically recognizes the right transposon sequence to insert into the cut.
The specificity of that interaction, needed to ensure the system only inserts new copies of itself, and the cutting of DNA, are features we'd like for gene editing, which places a value on better understanding these systems.
Bacterial genomes tend to have very few transposons—the extra DNA isn't really in keeping with the bacterial reproduction approach of "copy all the DNA as quickly as possible when there's food around." Yet bacterial transposons do exist, and a team of scientists based in the US and Japan identified one with a rather unusual feature. As an intermediate step in moving to a new location, the two ends of the transposon (called IS110) are linked together to form a circular piece of DNA.
In its circular form, the DNA sequences at the junction act as a signal that tells the cell to make an RNA copy of nearby DNA (termed a "promoter"). When linear, each of the two bits of DNA on either side of the junction lacks the ability to act as a signal; it only works when the transposon is circular. And the researchers confirmed that there is in fact an RNA produced by the circular form, although the RNA does not encode for any proteins.
So, the research team looked at over 100 different relatives of IS110 and found that they could all produce similar non-protein-coding RNAs, all of which shared some key features. These included stretches where nearby sections of the RNA could base-pair with each other, leaving an unpaired loop of RNA in between. Two of these loops contained sequences that either base-paired with the transposon itself or at the sites in the E. coli genome where it inserted.
That suggests that the RNA produced by the circular form of the transposon helped to act as a guide, ensuring that the transposon's DNA was specifically used and only inserted into precise locations in the genome.
To confirm this was right, the researchers developed a system where the transposon would produce a fluorescent protein when it was properly inserted into the genome. They used this to show that mutations in the loop that recognized the transposon would stop it from being inserted into the genome—and that it was possible to direct it to new locations in the genome by changing the recognition sequences in the second loop.
To show this was potentially useful for gene editing, the researchers blocked the production of the transposon's own RNA and fed it a replacement RNA that worked. So, you could potentially use this system to insert arbitrary DNA sequences into arbitrary locations in a genome. It could also be used with targeting RNAs that caused specific DNA sequences to be deleted. All of this is potentially very useful for gene editing.
Emphasis on "potentially." The problem is that the targeting sequences in the loops are quite short, with the insertion site targeted by a recognition sequence that's only four to seven bases long. At the short end of this range, you'd expect that a random string of bases would have an insertion site about once every 250 bases.
That relatively low specificity showed. At the high end, various experiments could see an insertion accuracy ranging from a close-to-being-useful 94 percent down to a positively threatening 50 percent. For deletion experiments, the low end of the range was a catastrophic 32 percent accuracy. So, while this has some features of an interesting gene-editing system, there's a lot of work to do before it could fulfill that potential. It's possible that these recognition loops could be made longer to add the sort of specificity that would be needed for editing vertebrate genomes, but we simply don't know at this point.
Channel ars technica.
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By Patrick Skerrett June 22, 2024
F irst Opinion is STAT’s platform for interesting, illuminating, and maybe even provocative articles about the life sciences writ large, written by biotech insiders, health care workers, researchers, and others.
To encourage robust, good-faith discussion about issues raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to them. You can submit a Letter to the Editor here , or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay.
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“Long Covid feels like a gun to my head,” by Rachel Hall-Clifford
Thank you for this. I’m a 65-year-old woman who’s Covid cautious and wears a mask in public places (yes, in 2024). I’ve never had Covid as far as I know, and I try to keep up with the research. I feel like everybody would be more cautious if they read this article on long Covid, because it helps to really understand the horrible ways that a mild case of Covid can affect your life in ways that are unimaginable.
— Hildy Hogate
“I’m a hypochondriac. Here’s how the health care system needs to deal with people like me,” by Hal Rosenbluth
Health anxiety is the less biased term, rather than hypochondria with all its comic baggage.
Though the writer likes full body scans for himself and they suit his particular fears, many, many people with health anxiety, including me, wouldn’t get within 10 feet of a full body scan. It would be the opposite of reassuring.
Even if it did reassure for the moment, anyone with health anxiety knows reassurance is short-lived. A scan done in, say, January, might reassure a non-anxious person for the next six months. But it would be the rare person with health anxiety who would feel reassured for more than a couple of weeks.
And why on earth would you want to create a separate billing code for this, which would, without question, be used to pick out, stigmatize, and limit access to medical care? That doesn’t help patients, it soothes and enriches insurers, who would undoubtedly limit access to care based on a scan. How long would it take before you called to make an appointment with your doctor and were told sorry, your insurance won’t cover an office visit — your scan said you have no problems?
The writer’s personal experience, psychology, and taste for scans are just that, personal. They don’t generalize to most, or even many, of those who suffer from health anxiety.
— Maria Perry
“NIH needs reform and restructuring, key Republicans committee chairs say,” by Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Robert B. Aderholt
I agree with the authors that NIH needs reform. I was an athletic, otherwise healthy person who was struck down and disabled by long Covid in January 2022. For over two years, I’ve watched life pass me by as NIH has fumbled the $1.15 billion allocated to it by Congress to study and treat long Covid. This initiative, known as RECOVER, has failed to publish any research that furthers our understanding of the underlying cause of long Covid and the vast majority of clinical trials they’ve launched are for drugs that people have already tried and found unhelpful.
Perhaps NIH would not have bungled the long Covid funding had it not completely ignored other post viral diseases, namely myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) for the past 40 years. ME receives only $15 million a year — the most underfunded disease per patient burden at the NIH.
NIH should reevaluate how it allocates funding to diseases and base allocations on objective patient burdens. HIV, a disease with treatments that allow people with it to live mostly normal lives, receives $3.3 billion annually through NIH. Meanwhile, ME patients are disabled, have no approved treatments, and suffer a higher patient burden. Covid long haulers are suffering the same fate, many struck down as first wavers in March of 2020 are still disabled and sick as ever over four years later. Despite this, there is still no yearly allocation for long Covid in NIH’s baseline budget, as funding has only ever come from one time appropriations. NIH should right-size funding for ME and long Covid and start taking these diseases seriously.
— John Bolecek, long Covid patient
“Addressing health care workers’ trauma can help fight burnout,” by Sadie Elisseou
Thank you for writing this essay on the trauma and burnout that are all too common among today’s health care workforce. I applaud you for underscoring the importance of trauma-informed organizations and the critical value of workplaces that are safe, supportive, and flexible.
As a nurse educator and researcher, I have come to understand the important role of resilience in the work that nurses do. Considering two-thirds of nurses (65%) experience burnout, resilience-building skills are critical to mitigating nurse exhaustion and preserving our nation’s nursing pipeline. If actions are not taken to better protect the physical and mental health of our healthcare workforce, patient care will suffer. Lawmakers must take notice.
Some efforts in Congress have been successful. Congress has introduced legislation to reauthorize the Dr. Lorna Breen Provider Protection Act , bipartisan legislation that recognizes the need for mental health resources and support programs for healthcare professionals. Since its original enactment, this act has been instrumental in funding grant programs for mental health training, education, peer support, and crisis intervention services.
The reauthorization of this measure would expand grants to more than 200,000 other types of health care settings as well as renew the focus on reducing administrative burden for health care workers. While this bill is not a perfect solution, it does provide needed to support for a workforce that is understaffed, overworked, and in need to relief.
I urge Congress to finish the job and fully reauthorize the Dr. Lorna Breen Provider Protection Act this year.
— Stephanie Turner, R.N., Ed.D., M.S.N., ATI Nursing Education
Patrick skerrett.
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Patrick Skerrett is filling in as editor of First Opinion , STAT's platform for perspective and opinion on the life sciences writ large, and host of the First Opinion Podcast .
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Like roughly 10 percent of the US population, I have eczema . It first appeared when I was around three months old. Now that I'm an adult, It's manageable mainly, though it does flare up occasionally, causing my skin to break out in that tell-tale itchy red rash and subsequent dryness.
Usually, it appears in the crooks of my elbows and sometimes in patches on my legs, ankles, hands, and the center of my neck. Changes in the weather (especially when it's hot), allergies and hay fever, and stress are all triggers for me, but I'm mostly able to manage these flares . When I was younger, however, it was a very different story.
In my first few years, my eczema was prevalent. It was constantly sore on my hands, legs, and ankles. Thinking back, I really feel for my mom; getting a baby to sleep can be difficult at the best of times, but getting a baby with eczema to sleep takes it to new heights. I don't remember, but she used to cover me in over-the-counter moisturizers, desperately trying to keep the itchy, dry skin at bay. Every night, she'd put me in mittens to prevent me from scratching and a sleep suit with feet to protect the angriest areas of skin. Though there were times it was "less bad," she says there was never a point when I was eczema-free as a toddler.
Throughout my childhood, I can vividly remember disliking spending time outdoors because things like heat, wearing sun cream, or sitting in grass (particularly) always made my skin more itchy. I knew I was "supposed" to enjoy being outside — and don't get me wrong, I still played with friends — but I much preferred being indoors or, at recess, being in a shady area on the playground. This made me far less likely to spend the afternoon scratching my skin.
If you have eczema, too, you know that it's a vicious cycle: itching is so difficult to resist, but the more you itch, the worse it gets. It can feel relentless. I grew to loathe the process of moisturizing the skin on my body as it often initially made the itchy feeling worse before the lotion soaked in. As a teen, I avoided applying it unless I had to — precisely the opposite of what eczema-prone skin needs, but I had little skin-care knowledge back then, and my focus was on being itch-free wherever possible.
For most of my teenage years, from 11 to 16, the eczema was persistent on my arms but looked most severe on my legs. It would be itchy as it healed and though I tried to resist, scratching would cause it to bleed and scab. To my knowledge, I don't think it ever got infected, but as a teen, I was very self-conscious of how it looked. I would rarely wear anything that meant my legs were on display, and if I did, I would wear tights, even at the height of summer. Though I have a small amount of scarring from that time, I've had little-to-no eczema on my legs in my twenties — although, in what turned out to be some pretty helpful irony, it flared up on my arms, hands, and legs recently.
At 29, I have a good handle on my eczema symptoms; working this out is a fairly personal process. It's taken some trial and error to find what works best on my skin. Steroid creams are a hot topic, but I personally have no issues when I use them occasionally to help manage any breakout "rashy" areas. I also try to avoid very hot showers where possible during a flare-up .
When my skin is dry and itchy, I use La Roche-Posay's Cicaplast Baume B5 ($20). Recently, my hands were so sore that they looked almost sunburnt, but applying a thick layer of this really took this down. I wish CeraVe had been around when I was younger; the Moisturizing Lotion ($15) is great for general use, while I use the thicker Moisturizing Cream ($19) on areas that are prone to getting very dry. Both are plain, gentle, and formulated with ceramides to support healthy skin barrier function. (Though I've not used it, I know the brand has an eczema-specific range in the US, too.) It's easy to see why so many dermatologists recommend both brands.
Between getting older and a societal shift in attitudes around how we look, I'm fortunate that I feel far less bothered by my eczema being visible; I don't think I even own a pair of nude tights anymore. As for moisturizing, I'm better at that, too. Now that I'm a beauty editor, I've heard from enough dermatologists over the years how important it is to look after the skin barrier, especially when you have eczema. The phrase "self care" is used a lot, but rather than being a chore, I now see it as a way of looking after myself and my skin.
Lucy Abbersteen is a London-based freelance beauty editor with eight years of experience in the industry. She started her career at Marie Claire UK and has since written for several outlets, including Refinery29 UK, Woman & Home, and PS.
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The CRISPR gene-editing technique has revolutionised biology, but now an even more powerful system called bridge editing could let us completely reshape genomes
By Michael Le Page
26 June 2024
Bridge editing physically links two strands of DNA
Visual Science
A powerful form of DNA-editing machinery discovered in bacteria might allow us to make much bigger changes to genomes than is currently possible with CRISPR-based techniques. However, it isn’t yet clear whether it will work in human cells.
Patrick Hsu at the Arc Institute in California calls the new genome editor the “bridge editing” system because it physically links, or bridges, two pieces of DNA. It can be used to alter huge sections of a genome, says Hsu, whose team worked out how sequences of “parasitic” DNA in bacteria naturally use the system to replicate, and how it might be adapted for genome editing.
A new understanding of tinnitus and deafness could help reverse both
“We’re excited about the potential to do much broader genomic changes beyond what we can currently do with CRISPR,” he says. “We think this is an important step towards the broader vision of genome design.”
CRISPR gene editing has revolutionised biology since it was unveiled in 2012. It is being used for many different purposes, and the first CRISPR-based treatments were approved last year . However, the basic form of CRISPR, which uses the Cas9 protein, is more of a gene destroyer than a gene editor.
There are two parts to the standard CRISPR Cas9 protein. One part links up with a guide RNA molecule and seeks out any DNA that matches a certain section of the guide RNA. Because it is easy to make custom guide RNAs, this means that CRISPR Cas9 can be “programmed” to seek out any part of the genome.
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The second part of CRISPR Cas9 is a cutter that severs DNA once the Cas9 has bound to its target site. The cell repairs the damage and the Cas9 cuts it again, and this keeps happening until mistakes are made during the repairs, mutating the target site in a directed way.
How CRISPR therapy could cure everything from cancer to infertility
While being able to mutate specific sites is useful, biologists would prefer to make more precise changes, so they have been modifying CRISPR proteins to edit DNA directly instead of relying on cell repair mechanisms. Base editors, for instance, can change a single DNA letter to another without cutting the DNA. Prime editors, meanwhile, can turn an extra section of guide RNA into DNA and add it to the target site.
These modified forms of CRISPR could help treat a huge range of conditions and several human trials are already under way, but tackling some diseases requires more advanced genome alterations. Lots of teams around the world are working on ways of doing this. Some realised that the mechanism used by genetic parasites called IS110 elements to cut and paste themselves from one part of a genome to another had potential, because it is RNA-guided like CRISPR, but Hsu’s team is the first to get the complete picture of how it works.
The bridge-editing system consists of a so-called recombinase protein that hooks up with a guide RNA, like the CRISPR Cas9 protein. What makes it unique is that the guide RNA specifies two DNA sequences to seek out, not just one, Hsu’s team discovered.
One sequence specifies the target site in the genome to be altered, just as in CRISPR, while the other specifies the DNA to be altered. This system can be used to add, delete or reverse DNA sequences of virtually any length.
Gene therapy enables five children who were born deaf to hear
There are already ways of doing this, but they typically involve multiple steps and leave extra bits of DNA, called scars, behind. “Bridge editing is effectively scarless,” says Hsu. “It offers an unprecedented level of control for manipulating genomes.”
This means it could be used to do far more than simply replace faulty genes, he says. It could also help us completely reshape the genomes of plants and animals. “What we’d like to do is to move beyond inserting individual genes to do chromosome-scale genome engineering,” says Hsu.
“The discoveries reported are indeed exciting, and the underlying biology is truly remarkable,” says Stephen Tang at Columbia University in New York, but so far bridge editing has only been shown to work in bacterial cells or in test tubes. It remains to be seen whether and how well it will work in complex cells like those of humans, says Tang. But even if bridge editing fails to work in initial tests in human cells, it’s likely that in time the system can be modified so it does work
Journal reference
Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07552-4
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These are the best iPad photo editing apps
The iPad is a nearly perfect platform for photo editing. What started as a more consumer-focused product that emphasized content consumption has turned into a powerful tool for creators.
The recently announced iPad Pro debuted Apple's most powerful processor yet. It is a workhorse with as much brawn as most Macs. Even entry-level iPads have enough horsepower to tackle advanced photo editing.
These iPad photo editing apps are perfect for photo editing, and while they take advantage of the most recent iPad processors. Don't worry if you have an older iPad they still run well on older iPads, too.
Adobe offers two versions of Lightroom on the Mac: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Lightroom Classic. Lightroom Classic is a full-featured photo management and editing tool with Adobe's best editing features.
On the other hand, Adobe Lightroom focuses on a more mobile workflow, and its suite of tools on Mac and iPad is more limited. Still, it offers more tools than most image editors on the iPad and instantly syncs with the desktop version.
The most recent version of Lightroom for mobile has new AI tools like Generative Remove, whcich It removes objects and replaces them with AI-generated images that blend seamlessly into the photo.
AI is also used to enhance images and create background blur, perfect for images from mobile devices, where backgrounds are often in sharp detail.
A great tool for social media creators, Lightroom allows mobile users to export replay videos of an editing session. Photographers can post these to their social accounts as tutorials or demonstrations of their editing techniques.
Lightroom for mobile is free but limited in pro features until they are unlocked with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, available on the Adobe website .
Lightroom Mobile is available on the iPhone and iPad is sold on the App Store. Fees and subscription costs vary.
Adobe Photoshop for iPad is a powerful mobile image editing tool and a fantastic addition to the iPad ecosystem. It syncs with Adobe Creative Cloud for persistent editing across devices, yet still works as a capable stand-alone editor.
Photoshop for iPad has an interface similar to the desktop version but scaled down for the iPad. It has toolbars and layers and a selection of the most common image editing tools.
Despite the simplified interface, like the desktop version, powerful features are tucked away in every tool.In addition to typical tools, there are touch-based shortcuts to access layers, explore tool options, and even run shortcuts.
As a note, Photoshop Express, also available on mobile, is entirely different and is a poor chioce for photo editing.
Adobe Photoshop for iPad is free for users with a plan that includes Adobe Photoshop for Mac or Windows, and can be found on the App Store. As you'd expect, fees and subscription costs vary.
For many users, the best iPad photo editor might be the built-in solution, Apple's Photos.
Thanks to the connection to iCloud , Photos on the iPad has access to all of a user's photo library, allowing for photo editing of any image taken on an iPhone or iPad or imported into Photos from a camera.
Photos isn't the most robust image editor; its functionality is dedicated to image storage and sharing. Still, a surprisingly powerful set of tools is available with a tap on the Edit button.
Users can try one-click adjustments with the Auto tool or choose from 17 tools, such as contrast, saturation, sharpness, and noise reduction. Photos has a selection of filters, though it is nowhere near as comprehensive as many tools designed for social media sharing.
It's even possible to draw annotations or effects on your images with the built-in Markup tools.
The best things about Apple Photos are that it's built into your iPad and the instant cross-device sharing that brings. Adjust an image on the iPad; that edit is available on the Mac through iCloud syncing.
There's even the ability to view and share images on Windows machines thanks to iCloud Photos, one of Apple's few Windows apps .
Photos for iPad is installed by default along with Apple's other core apps.
Capture One Pro is an immensely powerful photo management and editing tool. It directly competes against Adobe Lightroom Classic, Adobe's "traditional" version of Lightroom, but is much more powerful than Lightroom.
Capture One was born as software for commercial studio photographers but over time the program became a powerful photo management and editing solution While it has a more complex interface than Lightroom, it provides a larger feature set of editing tools.
Capture One Mobile can be used as a stand-alone editing tool yet offers extensive tethering tools to move images from a shoot into Capture One Pro. Users can even directly control many brands of cameras for instant importing to the desktop app.
This tethering functionality is similar to the Multicam features added to Final Cut Pro for iPad 2. Images captured on the mobile app can be seamlessly integrated into Capture One Pro, eliminating the need for a card reader to transfer images.
Users can apply Quick Edits to imported images and batch-adjust them. More than a dozen tools are also available to adjust an image. Users of Capture One Pro can also transfer images using the cloud service, Airdrop or though direc connection to a camera.
Capture One Mobile is available with several subscription plans that include upgrades for the subscription term and is also available as a purchase of the current version that never expires but doesn't get access to new full versions of the program.
You can find more information on the Capture One ecosystem on their website . You can download Capture One for iPad on the App Store.
Affinity Photo is a beloved photo editor on the Mac (and Windows) and a genuine competitor to Photoshop for the average user. Affinity eschews the subscription model and has a one-time purchase model that is equal to around three months of Adobe's Photoshop subscription plan.
Serif, the company behind Affinity, was recently acquired by Canva, an online design powerhouse. In my coverage of that merger , I pointed out how the combined apps could be a dominant force in the design market.
You do not need to purchase the desktop version to use Affinity Photo for iPad. It can be purchased without a subscription and costs under $20, but it is included in the company's bundle of all three creative tools.
Affinity Photo for iPad is designed around the iPad's interface. All the controls have been designed for touch use, a Quick Menu provides access to a programmable selection of tools, and a compact view gives more space to the art and less to the interface.
It has powerful editing tools, the ability to import Photoshop's PSD files (including Smart Objects), make panoramas, create image masks, work with infinite layers, and more.
Affinity Photo for iPad works on older iPads, though Serif recommends an M1 iPad or later for the best performance. Even without an M1 iPad, Affinity Photo for iPad provides an impressive array of tools at a fair price.
More information on the Affinity tools are available on the Serif website . Affinity Photo is available on the App Store.
Darkroom bills itself as "The easiest and most powerful photo and video editor," which is hard to verify objectively. However, the tool has received an Apple Design Award, Best of the App Store award, and has been both App of the Day and Editor's Choice.
Darkroom has desktop, iPad, and iPhone versions, each with a unified interface. Switching between platforms is easy. The application is sleek, which means it's free of distracting user interface elements and allows for power without being overly complex.
One-click presets quickly improve images, but powerful edits are just a quick trip to the sidebar away.
Since Darkroom is a photo and video editor, you get two different tools, saving time and money to have two different apps for each media type.
Darkroom is free to use, but a Darkroom+ subscription unlocks the app's powerful functions. Subscriptions are available for $33 a year, but Darkroom+ can also be purchased for a one-time $75 price that is good for the app's lifetime.
More information on Darkroom is available on their website. Darkroom for iPad is downloadable from the App Store.
Users of desktop photo apps with an iPad version should install the iPad versions, as they provide a unified photo editing experience. Installing the mobile version is a no-brainer if you subscribe to a creative suite like Adobe's.
There should be one perfect choice with so many excellent photo editors available. Why limit yourself? Every iPad photo app has a slightly different use case, and that's why many photographers have a quiver full of photo editing apps.
One powerful app wasn't mentioned: PHOTOMATOR - more of a photo developing app. Photomator on iPad and iPhone is extremely powerful. Especially in the bigger iPad screen. The interface and quality of editing RAW and JPG is exceptional. Unfortunately Photomator doesn't have the mind share value of the apps mentioned in the article. Photomator is also on Mac and every bit as capable. Pixelmator is a light but solid photo editing app as well. It's available for iPadOS and iOS but in 2024 the interface is old and feels very much like a 'classic iOS' app. Meh! Pixelmator Pro is Mac only but very powerful. Really wish they'd debut an iPad version. Pixelmator Pro might not reach feature polarity with Affinity Photo and Adobe Photoshop but that's okay. Not everybody needs every last feature. Pixelmator Pro (Mac) is super efficient and makes great ease of use for subject detection and background removal. And includes video effects/editing on equal level as the photo features. Though I am a former Photoshop daily user, these days I'm heavy in Affinity Photo (iPad and Mac) and Pixelmator Pro (Mac) for editing. For photo developing I'm all in on Photomator on iPad, iPhone and Mac.
Luminar for iPad and Mac
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I do the bulk of my photo editing from my computer, but there are some occasions when using my smartphone makes more sense. Here, I’m going to discuss the main situations in which I prefer editing my shots on my mobile phone.
After recently reintegrating social media after a long break , I’ve been more actively sharing my photography on Instagram. While I used to spend hours editing in Lightroom for Stories, now I’m more laid-back.
For me, the whole point of Instagram Stories is to share my creative process and some of my pictures in real-time. This is very different from most of my editing; it usually takes two to three months after photographing before I get around to editing them in Lightroom.
To edit photos for Instagram Stories, I usually edit in Lightroom CC, Photoshop Express, or Canva. At the very least, I would change the aspect ratio to 16:9 if it isn’t already.
Editing smartphone photos on a computer is, in my opinion, a tedious experience. I’d much rather adjust the picture on my phone, especially when a) that’s the screen size it was taken on, and b) I’m solely going to use it for social media.
I find it fascinating how much you can do with smartphone photos as they often look quite dull when you first take the picture. I especially enjoy adding contrast and using different filters and effects.
VSCO is typically my go-to app for editing pictures I take with my smartphone. Consider checking out this VSCO vs. Lightroom CC comparison to understand each app’s pros and cons, but I would suggest using both of them.
Lightroom Classic is my preferred photo editing software for several reasons, but I’ll sometimes use Lightroom CC (especially if I’m traveling). If I’ve started editing images on Lightroom CC for desktop, I will then use my phone to continue editing while on the go.
Adobe syncs your files in Lightroom CC across all devices, making it easy to access everything you need. You can then download the files from your computer if you’d prefer to save them there.
For deeper edits of pictures I’ve taken with my Fujifilm camera, I’ll always use RAW because you get more editing flexibility. However, when I’m traveling, I often transfer JPEGs from my camera to my phone. To be honest, many Fujifilm JPEGs look amazing right out of the camera—but sometimes, I’ll retouch the image.
How I edit these JPEGs depends on my camera settings. For example, I often shoot underexposed, so I’ll raise the exposure in the editing software if needed. Everything else is to taste, I gravitate toward somewhat saturated images.
I normally use Apple Photos to edit JPEGs from my camera. However, I sometimes experiment with different filters in VSCO.
I often transfer completed edits from my computer to my smartphone for three reasons:
If there is something else that I’d like to add, such as some more brightness or a different filter, I’ll do it on my phone. This often happens when I revisit pictures that were edited months or years ago. I almost always use Apple Photos for this kind of editing.
Even if you don’t want to use a computer, you can still edit your photos from your smartphone—and in some cases, it actually makes more sense to do so. If you’re only posting on your Instagram Stories, you don’t necessarily need to go into huge detail with your editing. And if you do edit on your computer, you can continue making adjustments on your smartphone.
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Make sure that you complete the most important editing and proofreading tasks. Editing. Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument.
2. Prune long sentences and paragraphs. Whether you've exceeded your word count or not, long sentences and paragraphs should be edited because they can be trickier to read, and risk being boring or hard to follow. Try, therefore, to keep sentences to a maximum of two or three clauses (or segments). Avoid long paragraphs by starting a new one ...
Essay Editing Tip #4: Use a Highlighter. Your writing skills can catapult if you start using some old-fashioned methods of self-editing. Old school writers always walk around with a highlighter in their hands. Highlighting is a great way to focus on individual sentences and vigorously proof check them.
Revising and editing an essay is a crucial step of the writing process. It often takes up at least as much time as producing the first draft, so make sure you leave enough time to revise thoroughly. Although you can save considerable time using our essay checker. The most effective approach to revising an essay is to move from general to specific:
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How to Edit Your Essay. Writing an essay is hard work! Once you put in time researching, outlining, and writing, you want to be sure to turn in a near-perfect essay. Editing your essay to perfection can be done in just a few simple steps. Strengthen Your Thesis Statement. The thesis statement is the backbone of your essay. You can think of your ...
Refine and polish: Use this opportunity to fine-tune your language, adjust the flow, and ensure that your essay truly reflects your voice and message. Incorporating this tip into your writing process can significantly improve the quality and effectiveness of your college essay. 10. Choose an ideal writing environment.
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How to Edit a College Essay. Written by Ali Pineo. Editing is a necessary step in the writing process—no one (read: NO ONE) writes a perfect first draft. In fact, you should spend the majority of your time in the editing phase, which requires you to navigate major revisions, paragraph- and sentence-level changes, and smaller edits like ...
Editing an essay effectively involves several key steps to enhance clarity, coherence, and overall impact. Here's a step-by-step guide: Review the Structure: Ensure your essay has a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should present your thesis statement or main argument, the body should contain your supporting points ...
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This is true at every level: If a word isn't necessary in a sentence, cut it; if a sentence isn't necessary in a paragraph, cut it; and if a paragraph isn't necessary, cut it, too. Go ...
Come up with a thesis. Create an essay outline. Write the introduction. Write the main body, organized into paragraphs. Write the conclusion. Evaluate the overall organization. Revise the content of each paragraph. Proofread your essay or use a Grammar Checker for language errors. Use a plagiarism checker.
Developmental editing (i.e. content editing, substantive editing) This is the first step of the editing process and applies to very early drafts. The editor helps you structure your ideas, decide what story to tell and find direction for your writing. No. This kind of editing involves heavy rewriting and restructuring. Our editors cannot help ...
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1. What is an essay structure? An essay structure serves as a framework for presenting ideas coherently and logically. It comprises three crucial elements: an introduction that communicates the context, topic, and thesis statement; the body focusing on the main points and arguments supported with appropriate evidence followed by its analysis; and a conclusion that ties together the main points ...
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Editing without precision To confirm this was right, the researchers developed a system where the transposon would produce a fluorescent protein when it was properly inserted into the genome.
You can submit a Letter to the Editor here, or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay. advertisement "Long Covid feels like a gun to my head," by Rachel Hall-Clifford
Journalist Uri Berliner is now senior editor at The Free Press — joining the masthead at the outlet which ran his controversial essay that let loose on his former employer, National Public Radio ...
A beauty editor shares a firsthand account of living with eczema, from specific triggers to how she manages flare-ups.
A powerful form of DNA-editing machinery discovered in bacteria might allow us to make much bigger changes to genomes than is currently possible with CRISPR-based techniques. However, it isn't ...
The iPad is the perfect tool for photo editing, and there are dozens of photo apps for it. Here are the best choices to make your photos stand out. The iPad is a nearly perfect platform for photo ...
Of all the photo editing effects in this article, film grain is one of the most widely available. I use Lightroom CC and VSCO to add film grain to pictures I take on my smartphone; if I'm editing photos taken on my Fujifilm camera, I use mostly Lightroom Classic but also Camera Raw and Photoshop occasionally.
To edit photos for Instagram Stories, I usually edit in Lightroom CC, Photoshop Express, or Canva. At the very least, I would change the aspect ratio to 16:9 if it isn't already. 2 When I Take Photos With My Smartphone Instead of My Camera Editing smartphone photos on a computer is, in my opinion, a tedious experience. ...
To the Editor: I write with dismay in response to "Flurry of Drama in Sag Harbor" (Sunday Styles, June 23), about Justin Timberlake's arrest in the Hamptons on a charge of driving while ...