Did You Polish Your Paper?

I know it feels nice when you finally finish a big research paper. It's so tempting to hit that print button and pack it up. But don't rush too much! If you have the time, you should really walk away from the computer and come back to your paper after an hour or more. Review your work and you may see that it could use a few polishing touches.

Check to see if you have and goofs when it comes to words that are often confused with other words. Do a "find" command for words like "your" and "you're" to make sure you haven't made a mistake that the spellchecker won't catch.

Revisit your thesis statement to see if it still conveys the main message of your paper. Sometimes the message changes as you write.

Check your footnotes or endnotes to make sure that all the sources you cite actually appear in your bibliography.

Finally, check your bibliography to make sure you have formatted everything correctly. That spacing can be a pain!