It鈥檚 always a good idea to plan before you write. You can gather your main ideas, list vocabulary you鈥檇 like to include and map out your structure in a way that makes writing easier.
By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.
鈥 Roald Dahl
Proofreading
Proofreading involves reading back over your work to check for mistakes that you might have missed and to edit or improve what you have written. All professional writers revise their work over and over again to improve or alter it until they are satisfied.
Here are a few things to focus on in your proofreading:
Capital letters
Read back over your work and check that each sentence starts with a capital letter. Check that you have also used capital letters for names and places. If you have used the personal pronoun 鈥業鈥, make sure it is a capital. Make sure you haven鈥檛 accidentally placed capital letters mid-word or sentence.
Omissions
It is quite common to miss words out when you鈥檙e writing under pressure, or even to miss letters from words. Check your writing, to make sure that your sentences are complete.
Punctuation
Check that your sentences end with full stops. Check you haven鈥檛 put commas where full stops or connectives would be more effective.
Spelling
Even the most expert of spellers will make simple spelling mistakes when writing under pressure. Prepare thoroughly and learn spelling rules and strategies.
What to improve
When you proofread, try to imagine you are reading your work for the first time, or that you are reading someone else鈥檚 work. If you had to give that person advice on how to improve, what would you ask them to change? It is a really useful skill to be able to edit and improve your own work.