PAE Professional Academic EnglishChapter 23
Performance · Chapter 23

Run this before
you submit.

The reader of your essay will be running these checks anyway. Run them first, and hand in nothing you haven't already graded yourself.

Matthew Clement · Careercomms.comWorkbook pages 100 to 101
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 23 · Why this matters

Be your own first reader.

Every mark you lose on the predictable things, a missing citation, a justified paragraph, a fabricated source, you could have caught in the ten minutes before you clicked submit.

Four checklists. Four passes. Nothing here needs talent, only the discipline to look.

The order

Argument first, it's the hardest to fix late. Then evidence, then language, then form, the quickest sweep, saved for last.

The pre-submit pass

Argument. Evidence.
Language. Form.

Run them in that order. Each one is a different lens on the same draft, and each catches faults the others miss.

Workbook · Chapter 23Pages 100 to 101
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 23.1 · The argument

01The argument.

  • Title is specific, and free of the word “Essay”
  • Thesis makes a defensible claim, not a fact or a question
  • “So what?” is answered in the introduction
  • Each body paragraph runs lead, evidence, analysis, finish
  • Analysis outweighs evidence across the essay
  • Counter-argument answers the strongest objection
  • Conclusion adds altitude, no new evidence
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 23.2 · The evidence

02The evidence.

  • Six sources minimum; half peer-reviewed
  • Every non-common claim carries a citation
  • Every in-text cite has a matching list entry
  • Every list entry is cited at least once
  • Figures are introduced, explained, emphasised, discussed
  • Sources verified independently, none fabricated
  • CRAAP score recorded for each in your bibliography
Talk about it · 5 minutes

If your essay went in right now, which check would it fail?

  • →  Is it an argument fault, or just form?
  • →  Which is quickest to fix, and which needs real time?
  • →  Have you verified every source actually exists?
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 23.3 · The language

03The language.

  • No contractions; spell them out
  • No first or second person; defined subjects only
  • No direct questions; make them declarative
  • No slang, clichés, or empty qualifiers
  • Reporting verbs vary, six to ten distinct ones
  • Hedging and boosting are calibrated to evidence
  • Transitions used sparingly, one or two a paragraph
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 23.4 · The form

04The form.

  • Name, ID, date on page one
  • One font throughout; margins & spacing match the brief
  • Page numbers on every page
  • No structural-word headings in the body
  • References formatted & ordered correctly
  • AI Statement at the end, specific and honest
  • Word count at the end; saved as PDF/DOCX, named for you
The habit that catches the rest

Read it twice. On paper, then aloud.

Pass one · on paper

Print it. Read with a pen. Mark every spot where your eye stumbles, those are the reader's stumbles too.

Pass two · aloud

Read it slowly, out loud. The sentences that catch your tongue are the ones that will trip the reader.

“Write better than you speak, writing is your chance to catch the sloppy little things spoken English forgives.”

PAE Professional Academic EnglishIn class · Exercise
EX. 23.1

Run one full pass

Audit · 12 min

Take your current draft and run the argument checklist, line by line, in order.

  1. Tick only what you can verify in the document, not from memory.
  2. For every un-ticked box, write the one fix it needs.
  3. Rank the fixes, do the argument ones before the form ones.
Swap

Trade drafts and run a partner's argument checklist. A second reader catches the box you talked yourself into ticking.

PAE Professional Academic EnglishChapter 23 · Recap

The chapter in one slide.

  • Be your own first reader; run the checks before the grader does
  • Four passes: argument, evidence, language, form
  • Argument first, it's hardest to fix late
  • Verify every source actually exists
  • Read it on paper, then aloud, before submitting
  • Tick only what you can see in the document
In the workbook

Chapter 23, pages 100 to 101, with the full four-part checklist and the two-pass habit. This is the last chapter, the whole book has been preparing you to run it.

Grade it before
they do.

Chapter 23 · The end of the book, the start of the habit