TO SEND OR NOT TO SEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE AUGMENTATIVE EFFECTS OF FINALITY ON COPYEDITING

Abstract

Copyediting is a crucial aspect of effective writing, which in itself is an important skill within higher education. In this paper, we attempt to establish the augmentative effects of a novel factor – finality – on the revision of two education-related writing tasks using a naturalistic proofreading paradigm. The first study adopted a between-subjects design and found that participants in the finality condition managed to detect more errors within their emails, however there was no effect observed on the essay task. In response, our second study attempted to extend the benefits of finality towards the proofreading of essays. While we managed to replicate the effects on experimental participants’ emails, there was once again no improvement in error-detection when it came to the essays. The third experiment utilised a within-subjects design and a more ecologically valid method of inducing finality for essays. In addition to discovering an absence of spill-over effects, we also managed to uncover an effect on the copyediting of subjects’ essays. Our findings collectively suggest that finality has an enhancing effect on one’s proofreading abilities, provided it is induced in an ecologically valid manner. Possible implications are then discussed.