This is the first part of an ongoing series of checklists to make sure your writing is at its best before you submit your work to any publishers.  Today's post is dedicated to grammar and style.

Have you…

• Corrected punctuation?
• Erased any stray punctuation marks?
• Made sure possessive words have apostrophes?

• Corrected all misspellings?
• Used the Thesaurus if a word is overused?
• Corrected nominalizations?
• Deleted unnecessary words?
• Deleted unnecessary repition?
• Changed words that may be considered sexist, racist, bigoted?
• Corrected misused or incorrect pronouns?
• Made sure you’ve used all words/phrases correctly, according to their definitions?
• Followed rules for capitalization?
• Corrected dangling and misplaced modifiers?
• Deleted all clichés?
• Deleted all empty phrases?
• Made sure your verbs are in the correct tense?
• Used the correct form of verbs when in the subjunctive mood?

• Vary sentence length?
• Checked that the meaning of every sentence is clear?
• Fixed any run-on sentences?
• Fixed any incomplete sentences (fragments used sparingly)?
• Checked to see that the subject of each sentence is clear?
• Turned the passive voice to active voice?
• Made sure that all sentences are cohesive?
• Shortened sentences that are 3+ lines long?
• Made sure each sentence has subject-verb agreement?

• Vary paragraph length?
• Made sure all paragraphs are cohesive?
• Ensured each paragraph is coherent?
• Relied on your brain instead of the spell checker and grammar checker?