Proofreading What You Have Written
Now that you have finished writing your persuasion, you may think you are done. This is far from the truth. In fact, one of the most important tasks that you need to accomplish with persuasive writing now needs to be done. It is proofreading, and without it you could find your entire argument could fall flat.
If writing your persuasive argument took you one hour, then you should proof read for at least half of that time. How long it takes you to proofread will depend on how thorough you want the editing to be.
Many people assume that they are excellent writers and don't need to proofread what they wrote. The truth is that every writer, from Shakespeare and Dickens, to Hemingway and King, has proofread what they wrote. These are legendary authors, and if they proofread what they wrote, why wouldn't you?
Look at the following sentence. It is a simple sentence that could be a part of any persuasive letter.
"I feel that there is a dire urgent need to work together in an effort to fight off the urgent threat of global warming that is threatening our planet and putting us all in danger of this threat to our planet."
At first glance this sentence may seem all right, but it is not. First, it is too long of a sentence and that can cause it to become difficult to read when there are no pauses or punctuation in it. Second, the words urgent, threat, and planet are used twice within one sentence; this can cause it to become redundant or confusing. When that sentence was first written, it may have seemed okay, but now when you proofread, you may see the problems with it. You may change it to be more readable like this:
"Prominent scientists, along with myself, feel there is a dire threat to our planet in the form of global warming. Our planet is in danger, and that puts us all in danger. Something has to be done."
With a quick proofread, it is easy to find the errors you may not have noticed before. Typically, you should do about four readings of your persuasive essay when you are proofreading. In addition, you should not read it four times in one hour. You should take a break of an hour, two hours, or even a day between readings. You will be amazed by how much you find to fix with your persuasive essay when you take a break between readings. With authors, they will often take as long as two months from when they finish a book, to when they start proofreading it. Giving yourself this break gives you a new perspective on what you are reading, and you will find many things to change as a result.