Final Countdown

This is where writing craft differs from visual art. It is much easier to spot (at least it is for me) when a painting is done and if you’ve added one brush stroke too many. Words seem to inspire endless polishing. But—whether it’s to a teacher, an employer, or a publisher—at some point, the tinkering has to stop. You must hand it over.

During the middle drafts, reorganizing of paragraphs is constant, agonizing over which quotes best support your argument is frequent, the feedback seems endless. When you feel like your paragraphs are in the only order that works—each one building on the previous one in a way that can’t prove your argument if swapped—it’s time to stop fiddling with order. When your sentences are clear and direct, strong and concise, and each one makes your reader know you have total control of your argument, it’s time to move to the final step: proofread.

Proofreading has been a part of the process from start to finish. Your test readers will have included some as well. Punctuation and grammar change the clarity, strength, and meaning of your words making it an inevitable part of every draft. The final draft is the moment proofreading becomes the focus, scrutinizing your work with total attention to detail, catching every typo, autocorrect mishap, and improperly placed comma.

Final drafts are your last opportunity to read your work aloud and check for extraneous or unnecessarily flowery language. Some teachers like a little flare; others don’t. It really depends on your project and understanding your audience. Regardless, even in creative writing, clarity is imperative.

Before presenting your work, take one last look at your formatting and citations. Check that everything is cited, your references are correct and formatted to the required style guide (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). Proper formatting includes title lines, page numbers, headers, footers, margins, how these should all look and where they should go. Not all teachers, applications, and style guides arrange things the same way. Double check your instructions. The answer is there. If they are not, ask. Losing points or credibility due to something so avoidable is the worst feeling. This may sound strange, but fail for the right reasons, reasons that matter.

Not all final drafts will be the same amount of work. If you’ve only had one or two drafts to edit and improve, then the final draft will be more intensive—more reorganizing for example—than a final draft that has been picked over by five or six readers over a month or more. The best sign that your work is ready is that you have time to work on finesse and feedback notes are dwindling. Remember: if you have time and willing readers, more feedback and more drafts are a wonderful thing. In fact, the way I like to end my final drafts is to have someone I trust—they may or may not have looked at it yet at all—read through it purely for typos and punctuation. My final read through lets me fix whatever they might have found and I feel safe to say it’s finished.

The end.

May Nerd-dom abound!

Katrina Pavlovich

Quote-of-the-Day

“It’s the final countdown!” —Europe

Thumbnail image found at https://www.illustrationhistory.org/illustrations/the-end-is-near