proofread-academic

Read as the examiner reads, with a pen. This skill produces findings, not a rewrite: the student stays the author, and every change is theirs to make. Report locations as file:line (or section and paragraph for Word exports).

Pass 1: structure

• Does the introduction state the research questions verbatim, and does the conclusion answer each in order?
• Does every chapter open with what it covers and close with what it established?
• Read only the first sentence of every paragraph: is it the claim? Does the sequence make an argument?
• Are headings parallel in form and specific (not "Results" for three chapters in a row)?
• Is anything promised ("Section 4.3 discusses") that does not exist?

Pass 2: consistency

• Terms: one name per concept. Build the list as you read; flag every synonym pair ("model" and "system" for the same thing) with both locations.
• Acronyms: defined at first use, then used consistently; not defined twice; not defined in the abstract and never used again. List every acronym with its first definition.
• Notation: each symbol means one thing thesis-wide; vectors, sets, and scalars typeset consistently; units consistent (ms throughout, not ms then s).
• Names: the proposed system, datasets, and baselines named identically everywhere, including figures and tables.
• Tense and voice per section (past for method and prior work, present for results and truths), and one first-person convention throughout.

Pass 3: figures, tables, equations

• Every figure and table referenced in the text before it appears, by number, with the reference resolving (?? or "Figure" with no number is a broken ref).
• Captions self-contained: content, conditions, what to notice, what error bars mean and n.
• Axes labelled with units; legends readable; the same series the same colour across figures.
• Tables: units in headers, consistent decimals per column, best result marked if the text says "best".
• Equations numbered if referenced; every symbol introduced in prose near the equation.

Pass 4: numbers and statistics

• Each number in the text matches its table or figure (spot-check every one; this is where copy errors live).
• Percentages have a base ("23% of 412 sessions"); means have variance and n; comparisons have the test, statistic, p or CI, and effect size where the field expects it.
• No "significant" without a test; no "proves" from an empirical result; no "significantly" as an intensifier.
• Rounding consistent and not beyond measurement precision.

Pass 5: citations

• Claims about the literature carry a citation; common knowledge does not.
• No citation inside a claim of the student's own contribution.
• A citation supports the specific claim (hand suspicious ones to citation-verifier Level 3).
• Citation style consistent (numeric or author-year, not both); "et al." usage per style.
• Bibliography contains only cited works; entries have the fields the style needs (bibtex-manager checks this).

Pass 6: mechanics

• Spelling variant (US or UK) consistent; the department's choice wins.
• Hyphenation consistent ("open-source" adjective, "open source" noun); no em dashes; straight vs curly quotes consistent with the format.
• Latin abbreviations used correctly or replaced (e.g., i.e., et al., cf.), no "etc." in formal prose.
• Sentences over 40 words: flag; nested parentheses: flag; paragraphs over 250 words: flag.
• Widows, orphans, and a heading at the bottom of a page (check the PDF, not the source).
• Front matter complete: title page, abstract, acknowledgements, ToC, lists of figures/tables, acronyms.

Report

# Proofread: chapters/04-results.md (2026-09-21)

Summary: 3 structural, 11 consistency, 6 figure/table, 4 numeric, 2 citation, 9 mechanical.

## Must fix before submission
- 04-results.md:88  "Table 4.3" referenced; file has Tables 4.1 and 4.2 only.
- 04-results.md:130 text says 23.4% reduction; Table 4.2 row 3 shows 24.3%.
- 04-results.md:12  "significantly faster" with no test reported.

## Consistency
- "the proposed system" (12 uses) vs "our tool" (5 uses) vs "FeedbackBot" (3): choose one.
- Acronyms: LLM defined at 02-related.md:14 and again at 04-results.md:20; "SUS" used at 04-results.md:160 never defined.

## Mechanics
- 04-results.md:44 sentence of 58 words.
...

Order within each group by location. Cap mechanics at 20 with a count of the rest. Never silently fix; never change the file.

Attribution

Checklist categories adapted from proofreading by jakobthumm (MIT).