Editing a Research Paper: 12 Pro Tips to Polish Your Writing

Quality academic writing should objectively analyse arguments and communicate in an easy-to-understand manner. Often, structural, grammatical, and referencing errors may crop up as you write, risking poor grades and plagiarism. 

Editing is crucial for a coherent paper free of various errors. However, many students struggle with editing their papers while others do a poor job, missing various crucial mistakes. 

How should I edit my research paper? Read on for tips on how to edit a paper and overcome common academic writing errors.

How to edit a research paper: 12 pro tips for your writing

1. Edit each chapter as you go

Editing a research paper often proves a tedious task due to the numerous numbers of pages within your work. For easy editing, we recommend that you adopt a chapter-by-chapter editing approach.

Before writing any chapter, develop an outline and highlight the objectives for the section. Afterward, gauge how your chapter has met these objectives and address various issues within each section.

 This will help you overcome the burden of editing your full research paper, reducing the exhaustion and ensuring that your paper addresses all your intended objectives.

2. Develop a reverse outline

Before writing your paper, develop a reverse outline for each section. This allows you to gauge the completion of your research and to compare your initial outline to your final paper. 

With this, you can determine the areas that require further changes to achieve the goals you had set for your research paper. 

3. Make use of various editing software

The first step to perfection is by admitting your limitations. When editing your paper, you may miss various mistakes and suffer unwanted consequences. Editing software helps you to nub various issues that you could have easily missed, reducing the number of errors to fix.

These tools can help you identify instances of plagiarism in your work, ensuring that you fix the issues before the submission of your paper. 

4. Take some time off when editing a research paper

If you have properly scheduled time for your research paper, you shouldn’t be in a rush to edit your paper. Ideally, take some time off to regain your focus and master ample concentration during the editing phase. 

Also, employ the Pomodoro technique in your editing phase to maintain focus throughout your editing, and to ensure maximum productivity. 

5. Engage an editing service

If you have limited time at your disposal, it is best to consult an editing service. These editing experts can help you to ensure that each chapter is in order as you progress with subsequent sections of your paper. 

A research paper editor usually has a vast understanding of your topic ensuring a high quality of your paper. 

6. Find a conducive environment

Focus is crucial as you edit research papers. for the best results, you should gauge each argument in your work and check for the coherence of your arguments.

This is not possible when you are riddled with countless distractions. We thus recommend that you find a conducive environment free of distractions, ensuring the most of each editing session. 

7. Tackle one aspect at a time

There are multiple types of errors to handle within a research paper. Ideally, tackle one error at go for the best results. For instance, you could start by checking for plagiarism and later check for structural issues. 

8. Revisit guidelines on how to edit research papers

The faculty guidelines are of key essence for your research paper edit. These guidelines highlight any issues you could have overlooked, ensuring that your paper meets the expected faculty standards.

Keep the rules in mind during writing and editing and check how compatible your final paper is with the writing guidelines. 

9. Chunk long sentences

Break long sentences into two and cut off superfluous words within your essay. Doing this will allow for optimal readability and also help to increase your final word count.

10. Trim the jargon

Too many technical terms may make your paper hard to read. When you are editing your work, replace the unnecessary jargon, limiting the technical terms to the words you’ve encountered throughout the topic.

11. Attribute quotations

Countercheck all quotations in your work to ensure that they are credited to their source. This is often a common error by students that results in direct plagiarism. 

12. Countercheck references

One phase of your writing should be dedicated to counterchecking in-text citations to the entries in the works cited section. This allows you to check for broken references and to ensure that you have adhered to the recommended referencing style. 

Final word

Many students find it difficult to adhere to all the rules. Therefore they prefer to ask an online research paper editor for help. This is a great way to save time and get a good grade. You may find it difficult to edit your scientific papers after a long period of writing. You always have a way out!