A checklist to complete before sending a paper to coauthors

I like to think of myself as the type of person who doesn’t make the same mistake twice. But in my time as a graduate student, I have received feedback on multiple papers in which I’ve made the same technical mistakes over and over again. It was embarrassing for me to see this pattern, and surely frustrating for my coauthors to spend their time correcting me. In pursuit of improvement, I developed a checklist of common technical mistakes that I go through before sending off a paper. Some items are specific to APA style, but others are relevant universally for scientific writing. The checklist is useful to me both in writing and in reviewing others’ work, and I hope it will be useful to you, too.

Before you attach a paper to an email or upload it to an editorial manager, did you remember to:

• Italicize statistics
• Use lowercase n when referring to subsamples and uppercase N when referring to entire samples
• Include a space before and after equal signs (e.g., "N = 434," not "N=434")
• Use a consistent number of decimals throughout the paper
• Check that the reference list adheres to APA style (or whatever reference style the journal uses; FYI, the APA style blog is an excellent resource if you have questions)
• Check that all in-text citations appear in reference list
• Check that all sources in the reference list appear in the body of the paper
• Check that the cited authors' names are spelled the same between in-text citations and the reference list
• Use decimal tabs on tables (ugh) to center columns of numbers on the decimal point
• Check that all tables/figures are referred to in the body of the paper
• Include page numbers
• Include a heading with the current date, your name and the project name
• Use consistent terminology across the text (e.g., don’t switch between depression and internalizing symptoms, pick the one that best describes your concept and use it consistently)
• Turn off widow/orphan control to improve the flow of the text

 
What else would you include in this checklist?