Thesis Editing Guidelines

Often students ignore or does not pay much attention to the final stage of dissertation writing that is to edit and proof read the dissertation or coursework.

If you supervisor or tutor spots any textual errors in your coursework then they would penalised you which results in less marks even if the coursework or dissertation is answered perfectly. So guys editing and proofreading is the most important step in dissertation writing. Thesis editing must be done carefully , systematically and with free mind.

Editing dissertation involves a great amount of work and of course it is not an easy job. There are several things that come in the editing like reorganising the thesis, paragraphing the whole report, proof reading the dissertation.

In this section we will be discussing the best ways to edit your homework, so the guide provides the great dissertation editing help.

    • First thing I do while editing the report is to remove the stuff from dissertation drafts that are not relevant and that does not add any value in getting good marks for my thesis. If I find that I am short on total number of words after removing the unrelated stuff then I will start writing the new and related stuff to get my word count right on the dissertation.
    • Make Sure your dissertation writing is clear and defining the objectives, where you find the stuff that is not relevant, just delete those sections or refine those if deletion is not possible.
    • If you are writing the technical report or any other specific subject report, then while editing I always make sure that I have used the same subject’s terms and words. I always try to remove the normal words with the words related to dissertation subject. For example if I have dissertation on computer science then I would replace the word like ‘combination’ with ‘integration’, ‘sending data’ with ‘transmitting data’.
    • Using the right grammar will definitely gain good marks for you. Use the active sentences and avoid using the passive language in the thesis writing. For example – In passive voice there is a sentence ‘Coursework must be edited by students‘ , In active voice it is like ‘Students must edit their coursework‘. Also use the grammar checker softwares like Microsoft Word. and there are lot of free grammar checker websites that you can use. Although the softwares are not perfect but if you use them intelligently and carefully they can help and save a lot of your coursework editing time.
  • Always check punctuation, spellings and grammar.
  • Try using the short sentences generally around 25 words, where you find the long sentences, shorten them or break them into two sentences by placing the conjunctions like and, or , however etc.
  • Always start a new chapter of dissertation in a separate page.
  • Avoid using the words ‘I’ , ‘We’, ‘You’ in the dissertation , edit these words and replace them with words like ‘Author’.
  • Double check that each chapter of dissertation starts with introduction and then summarizes with the conclusion section.
  • As a part of theses editing ,check that the references are correctly written and in correct format, the references style should follow your university guidelines like some have MLA, Harvard, oxford styles,  see here on how to write the references.
  • When starting a paragraph always make sure that everything you write in the paragraph is related to the topic and you are not going out of topic or idea in a single paragraph. If you have a another idea then write that in another paragraph.
  • Format the report and double check that the dissertation is edited according to your university’s guidelines. Double check the spellings / grammar / format on headings , sub headings as a final step of thesis editing process.
  • Check the logical flow of the dissertation document by rereading the full report as a final draft and make sure the headings , sub headings are in logical order.
  • As a part of thesis editing  check plagiarism at the end.
  • And don’t forget to proof read the dissertation after finishing the editing part, see here the guide on how to proofread the dissertation.