Your final rough draft may look very rough indeed, so your next step is to create a final, perfectly clean copy. You will submit this version, which represents all your work and effort, to your instructor. At this point, run the spell checker but do not stop there. To make sure that this final version puts your best foot forward, proofread extremely carefully. It’s best to work with a hard copy, since reading onscreen often leads to missed typos. Read the copy aloud for content and for the flow of the argument, making sure you haven’t mistakenly deleted words, lines, or whole sections. Then read the copy backward from the last sentence to the first, looking for small mistakes such as punctuation problems or missing words. If you are keeping an editing checklist (4k), look for the types of editing problems you have had in the past.

Once you are sure your draft is free of errors, check the design one last time to be sure you are using effective margins, type size, color, boldface and italics, headings, and so on. You want your final copy to be as attractive and readable as possible (see Chapter 16).

After your manuscript preparation and proofreading are complete, celebrate your achievement: your research and hard work have produced a project that you can, and should, take pride in.