You've written the essay. It's due tonight. You've read it four times and it still feels off — but you can't tell if the problem is a typo, a clunky sentence, or just tiredness. Here's a free workflow that catches almost everything, even at 11pm.
Step 1 — Take a break before you proofread
Even ten minutes away resets your brain. You can't proofread writing you just finished — your eyes autocomplete what you meant to say, not what's on the page. If you have longer, sleep on it; overnight distance beats any tool. If you don't, get a drink and walk outside for five minutes. Anything that breaks the visual pattern of the document works.
Step 2 — Read it out loud
Awkward sentences trip your tongue. Missing words disappear when you read silently but surface the moment you speak them. This one pass fixes more than any tool. Read to an empty room; read to a pet; read to your reflection. Just read it as speech, not thought.
You'll notice things like this on the first sentence you speak:
The authors argues author argues that the industrial revolution were was a turning point in in in European economic history.
Step 3 — Run it through a free AI proofreader
Paste the essay into Verbao's free proofreader (500 words per submission, no login). It'll catch spelling, grammar, punctuation, inconsistent capitalisation, and awkward phrasing in one pass — and give you a corrected version you can compare against your own.
- Split longer essays into chunks under 500 words to stay on the free plan.
- Read each suggestion before accepting — you're the author, not the tool.
- Keep your voice: reject changes that flatten your style.
- Pay attention to the same fix appearing three times — that's a habit worth breaking.
Step 4 — Tighten one bloated sentence
Every essay has one sentence that's twice as long as it needs to be. Find it and run it through the paraphraser on 'concise'. Nothing else on the page will save you as many words.
In light of the fact that the results were somewhat inconclusive, it is arguable that further research would be beneficial in this particular area.
Because the results were inconclusive, further research would help.
Step 5 — Check the things AI misses
- Does your introduction actually match the essay you ended up writing?
- Does every paragraph earn its place, or is one just padding?
- Does the conclusion answer the question in the title?
- Are citations formatted consistently (Harvard, APA, MLA)?
- Is the word count within the range your marker asked for?
Step 6 — Homophone sweep
Even a good AI proofreader will occasionally let a real-word homophone slip past. Do one final scan for the usual suspects: their/there/they're, its/it's, affect/effect, whose/who's, principal/principle. One misplaced apostrophe on page one is worth a mark by itself with a strict marker.
The novel's central affect is a sense of loss whose origins are never explained.
The novel's central effect is a sense of loss whose origins are never explained.
'affect' (verb) vs 'effect' (noun) — the classic essay slip.
Step 7 — One final read on a different device
Read the essay on your phone, or print it. New format, new eyes. You'll spot at least one thing you missed.
That's it. Free, repeatable, and better than most paid tools if you actually do the human steps.