Proofreading revisited: Interrogating assumptions about postsecondary student users of proofreading

As the pressure to attain “standard written English” faces writers at every level of higher education, this standard is sometimes met through the involvement of others besides named authors in the production of texts, known as literacy brokering. One form of literacy brokering in which students may engage is proofreading, defined as third-party corrective interventions in student writing. Most prior proofreading research has given little attention to proofreading practices among undergraduate students or proofreading of other genres of student writing, and other potential settings of proofreading aside from commercial or institutionally embedded services have not received due consideration.