Mechanics Checklist

Use this checklist to give your essays a final, careful reading to catch problems with mechanics.

1. Check spelling.

• Look for transposed letters.
• Look for words that are correctly spelled, but which are the wrong word.
• Look for omitted endings, especially -ed and -s.

2. Check possessive forms.

• Be sure to use an apostrophe for possessives (except possessive pronouns).
• Don't confuse its (possessive form) with it's (contraction for it is).

3. Check capitalization.

4. Check punctuation.

• Make sure all sentences have end punctuation.
• Check for comma splices.
• Examine all semicolons for appropriateness.

5. Check to see that the title of your paper is in proper form.

• Make sure that major words are capitalized.
• Do not underline your title.
• Do not put your title in quotation marks
• Do not put your title in all caps, bold, italics, or a font different from the rest of your text.

6. Check to see that titles of books, articles, plays, television programs, works of art, songs, and other works mentioned in your paper are properly handled.

• Titles of books, plays, and other long or major works are underlined.
• Titles of articles, songs, short stories, and short poems are set between quotation marks.

7. Check to see that you have used quotation marks and parentheses properly and in pairs (the closing quotation mark and parenthesis are often forgotten).

8. Check the numbering of your pages.

9. Check for words or phrases that have been omitted from your text or words that have been inadvertently repeated.

10. Check for those errors that you have found in your previous work.  

Last updated 04/04/02