Proofreading

TO: Honors Program Students
FROM: Honors Advisory Council Proofreaders
RE: PROOFREADING HONORS PROJECTS

We are writing to you to congratulate you for participating in SCC’s Honors Program; we consider you to be “cream of the crop” students. The purpose of this memo is to give you some pointers about what the Honors Advisory Council expects to see in your Honors projects submitted for our approval. Our goal is to have you present the college with the best possible Honors Projects.

We expect that you have become familiar with the handbook about the Honors Program and the kinds of projects you may complete. We expect that you understand all projects should contain a written component of some kind. But if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to contact any of us.

We are the proofreading subcommittee. This means that we review the written component of Honors Projects BEFORE they are submitted to the approval process. Your mentor should have given you a list of deadlines for this process, and you should have made arrangements to meet with your mentor regularly.

We expect that you will meet with your mentor numerous times throughout the semester before the deadline for submitting papers to the proofreaders. Your mentor should be giving you suggestions about the content and style of your writing. Also, your mentor should direct you to use the most appropriate documentation system for your paper [e.g., MLA, CBE, APA, Chicago Manual]–one that fits either your major’s or course’s discipline or the field of your research paper’s topic. (You must specify this system to the Honors Advisory Council on the Plan of Action form.)

This means that we expect your mentor to have reviewed your written work and given advice about revising it BEFORE we as proofreaders see the product. We expect to view “final” draft quality. We furthermore expect that you will have met with the Writing Center Director to have your papers reviewed BEFORE they are submitted to us as the Honors Advisory Council proofreaders–this deadline is on the Plan of Action form. Contact the Writing Center to make an appointment. We expect all Honors students to use Writing Center services as part of completing an Honors Project.

Please keep in mind that our markings as “proofreaders” are NOT final! We will make suggestions and markings for revision. But when the whole committee meets at the end of the semester, there may be suggestions made by the other members of the Honors Advisory Council that the proofreaders had overlooked. We expect you to understand that your writing and research are both processes, and that you may be asked to change something that we did not mark or was not discussed during the preliminary proofreading stage.

Given that all these expectations have been met, here is what we, as the proofreaders, will do.

We Will Mark:

• Spelling errors;
• Punctuation errors;
• Grammar errors;
• Sentence structure errors;
• Capitalization errors;
• Questions about sources [i.e., correct documentation and citation];
• Inappropriate usage [i.e. diction/word choice];
• Questionable sentence structures [i.e. syntax];
• Questionable punctuation [we will suggest alternatives];
• Ineffective organization;
• Lack of development/support for main ideas;
• Inability to conform to the guidelines for the particular project.
   

We may also give comments at the end of your written component about weaknesses and/or strengths, if we think such comments necessary.

We are open to your suggestions. Our goal is to have students present the college with the best possible Honors Projects.