Word Order

One major writing mistake that can only be picked up by careful proofreading is incorrect word order. It is possible to write a sentence that is technically grammatically correct, but does not reflect the meaning you intended because of the word order. Changing the syntax (or word order) of a sentence can completely change its meaning, as this unfortunate market sign shows.

A helpful rule of thumb for syntax is to remember that most English sentences conform to the subject, verb, object sentence structure.

For example: The girl kicked the dog.

When we change this order to place the object at the beginning of the sentence, we say the syntax has been ‘inverted’.

For example: The dog was kicked by the girl.

The important thing to remember to avoid making mistakes this one is that if you have a phrase that modifies part of your sentence, you need to keep those two parts together.

For example: “Pay close attention throughout the night to hear the rare birds singing”, is different in meaning from: “Pay close attention to hear the rare birds singing throughout the night.”

Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes are small modifiers added to the beginning or end of a word to change its meaning. You will usually recognise them and know immediately what impact they will have on the word, as they have a clear function and are used in many common words.

For example: anti- (against/opposite) semi- (half/partly) –phobic (afraid of)

We can use these to change the meaning of a word completely.

For example: freeze and anti-freeze, colon and semicolon, sphere and hemisphere etc.

However, it is important to be familiar with the function of prefixes and suffixes and only to use them where they are appropriate. The maker of this sign has assumed that the prefix ‘in’ means opposite, or negates the word, as in examples like ‘inadmissible’ or ‘inaccessible’. So he has tried to use it to imply poor visibility, or a lack of visibility. Yet the word ‘invisible’ already exists, and has a different meaning altogether, so his sign should have read “Be Aware of Poor Visibility”.

Using the Wrong Word

Another common problem that may lead to embarrassment is the accidental use of the wrong word in written text. Because these words, if spelled correctly, may not be picked up by an automatic spelling and grammar check, it is vital to proofread important pieces of writing before they are sent to the printers.

This often occurs with long, complex words that writers are not used to using, as this unfortunate door sign demonstrates! So make sure you get a fresh pair of eyes to look over your work, as it can be difficult to spot this kind of mistake in your own writing.

Here are our top tips for getting started when proofreading.

Take one step at a time

When faced with a complex text full of technical, structural and linguistic errors, a proofreader is often tempted just to dive in and work his way slowly through, correcting all the problems of each individual sentence one by one. This might feel quicker than going through the text many times but in fact it is much quicker and more efficient to take one problem at a time and deal with that single issue throughout the text.

So for example it is much better to scan the entire text for punctuation errors and correct those first, then to go through it again to correct spelling, then again for grammar and so on than to take it sentence by sentence. This provides a much more thorough check as you are focussing specifically on each type of mistake at a time, and also actually greatly speeds up the process as you will resolve many very similar errors more quickly if you do them all in one go.

Don’t start with structure

It is very tempting when faced with a proofreading job that needs a total edit, including restructuring, to sort out the structure of the text first. However, such jobs often require a great deal of alteration to the sense and ideas of the text and it is actually much better to do all the simpler corrections, of language, grammar and so on first. You will find that this provides a much clearer picture of the text when it comes to restructuring and saves the common mistake of having to rearrange the structure for a second time after proofreading has been completed.

Pinpoint problem areas

If you really feel that you can’t see the wood for the trees, a good way to get started on a proofreading job is to pick out the most problematic areas of the text and work on those first. This should make the overall picture more manageable.

Author queries

If the text is simply so riddled with errors that you feel unable to begin, then start by picking out all the most obscure sections where the sense is simply unclear and query these with the author first. This should make the task of the proofreader much simpler. For further advice in this instance, see our earlier blog on author queries.

Problems in proofreading most commonly occur when a situation arises where there are several legitimate options. If there is a clear mistake in spelling or grammar, or an obviously weak structural element to a text, the solution is simple and the proofreader has no tricky decision to make. However when a proofreader comes up against a matter that is more of a stylistic choice, it can be difficult to know how to make the right decision for the individual client. One such situation may arise when a proofreader is dealing with referencing.

What is a referencing system? What is a reference?

A referencing system is a method by which a writer includes within their text a reference consisting of information about sources they have referred to or quoted in their work. For example, if a writer quotes a recent article, the reference would include the name of the article, the author and information about its date and publication. This enables a reader to follow up the source and investigate further should they wish to, as well as providing an appropriate acknowledgement of the writer’s sources of research and information.

This reference may take the form of information (often abbreviated) included in brackets within the body of the text itself, or can sometimes appear in footnotes at the bottom of each page.

What are the different types of referencing system?

There are many different types of referencing system, however the most common are known as the Oxford and Harvard systems. For details on the differences between these systems and how to implement them, a quick internet search throws up hundreds of helpful guides.

How do I decide which referencing system to use?

It is absolutely essential to check with a client before you begin proofreading, to ask which referencing system they prefer or require. If the assignment is academic it is likely that the relevant institution or university will have very specific requirements and it is very important to follow these exactly. To avoid any confusion the best technique is to ask the client to provide any specific written instructions they have regarding referencing systems in order to ensure you are able to follow them to the letter.

What if the client has already started to reference?

In some cases a client may already have started referencing, but it is extremely common in a proofreading job for the proofreader to be asked to complete, correct or create uniformity between references.

In such cases it is most important to create absolute consistency within the referencing system. If the client has started off with one system then it is essential to maintain the same method throughout the text. Very often clients are unsure which system would be most appropriate for their piece of work. With these proofreading jobs it might be best to present them with a short extract showing examples of both types of referencing system so they are able to decide for themselves which method they favour.

If a client text is complex and contains a great number of references it is usually best to use footnotes so that the constant insertion of references doesn’t disturb the coherence and flow of the writing. On the other hand if a text contains only a few sporadic references it may be more advisable to include them in the body of the text for ease of reference.

As referencing is one of the areas in which proofreaders often find a great number of errors, it is also not uncommon to discover that a client has begun referencing their text incorrectly. In these cases it is advisable to start from scratch in order to create a clear and consistent system throughout.

Final Referencing Note

Finally be aware that it is not part of the proofreader’s job to search through texts and trawl through online journals to find the details of references. A client should always provide you with all the relevant information for each reference: author, title, date, publisher and place of publication. Sometimes it is also necessary to include page number and edition. To arrange and format these details into an appropriate referencing system is part of a proofreading job. To find them is not.

Whilst meticulous attention to detail and a close knowledge of spelling, grammar and punctuation are the mainstays of the proofreader’s handbook, there are other subtle skills the professional proofreader must master in order to really be successful. One of these tricky techniques is the handling of material on initial examination and the querying of passages with the author when the intended sense is not clear.

A proofreader can make his or her own judgement calls when it comes to spelling and grammar, and even syntax and structure, but there will be moments in many a proofreading job where it simply is not clear what the author intended the meaning or emphasis of the sentence to be, and here it is not a case of discretion, but a need for tactful and professional communication that arises.

These cases tend to be most frequent when the piece has been adapted from somewhere else, or the writer is not writing in their first language. Occasionally the problem may also arise from a lack of punctuation, which can have a very ambiguous effect on the apparent meaning of a sentence. Here are our top tips for handling author queries.

• Do a thorough initial assessment. It is much easier and more professional to take all author queries to the writer in one go, before starting work, than to constantly bother them with questions whilst you are working on the piece.
• Be precise. Identify each query by page and line number and ensure that you clarify exactly what the question is, rather than simply asking them to explain the general meaning.
• Resolve all author queries before starting work. It is essential to check through the manuscript after completing your queries to ensure that all is clear before you begin.

Finally a proofreader should be prepared for the eventuality that there may be a text that simply contains too little sense to be edited into a coherent document without a significant level of re-drafting and additional material. At this juncture it is perfectly reasonable to return the text to the client after the initial assessment, and to explain that the extent of technical and grammatical errors is greater than can be addressed by proofreading alone. In such cases a proofreader may advise a client that they should seek the services of a copy-editor, or may offer to take another look at the piece once it has been worked on further. It is always important to make this decision before beginning work on a manuscript to avoid causing any inconvenience to the client during the course of a proofreading job.

proofreading can be an exceptionally time-consuming job, particularly given the vast number of different aspects of a text that have to be checked and double-checked before a professional proofreader is satisfied with the quality of his work.

Whilst attention to detail and perfectionism are, of course, essential skills for a top proofreader, there are nonetheless some clever methods and handy tricks every proofreader can use to speed up their proofreading without in any way reducing the quality of their work. Check out our top tips for speed proofreading.

Know what you’re looking for. Proofreading a document from start to finish just by going through each sentence individually and considering it on its own merits is an extremely slow and time-consuming method of proofreading. It is much better to take each area of potential error one at a time and quickly to skim through the document focusing only on that single issue. So for example, start by checking all the punctuation throughout the document, then move on to spelling and so on. This may sound like a longer method because it involves more read-throughs but in fact keeping your mind (and grammatical rule book!) open to only one issue at a time can dramatically speed up the process with which you are able to pinpoint and deal with issues as you are looking for one specific thing at a time.

Have a checklist. A great way to speed through your proofreading job is to have a checklist of all the different areas you need to proofread, ticking each one off as you complete it. This way you reduce any margin for error and ensure that speed doesn’t mean sloppiness or forgetting to cover any important areas. Your checklist should include (but is not limited to): spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalisations, images and diagrams, paragraphing, formatting, referencing, cohesion and structure.

Create an initial assessment. Some proofreaders jump straight into a text, but briefly skimming it over first can make a huge difference by helping you to assess the major areas for concern. This prepares you to know exactly where your attention should be focused when proofreading; for example in a text that is riddled with punctuation errors but grammatically sound, preventing you from wasting time on unnecessary scrutiny of the wrong areas.

Split it up. When you are proofreading a long text, you can become bogged down after an hour or so and begin to work more slowly. If you take breaks and work in short, sharp bursts, you will actually find that you get the proofreading done in a much shorter time period overall as you will be fresher and sharper in each session, and therefore able to pick up mistakes more quickly.

Do a final check. If you feel you have sped through a proofreading job you don’t have to worry that you may have missed an important error – you can always take a few minutes to perform a final check-through the finished text as a last safety net for any remaining mistakes.

Whilst these changes are typical of proofreading and copyediting jobs, it is only the very best proofreaders and the most skilful copy editors who manage to leave intact the sense of authorship and ensure that the text remains imbued throughout with a sense of the personality of the writer. This is an extremely useful and important proofreading skill to learn. Start mastering it now using the following steps.

• Get a sense of the authorial voice before you begin. A common proofreading mistake is to realise too late that you have altered the style and content of a text to such an extent that the sense of identity of the author has been lost. At this stage it is often too late to recover.
• To avoid this, ensure that you read the text thoroughly before you begin proofreading to get a real feel for the writer’s own voice. It is also a good idea to keep a copy of the original text saved separately so you can refer back.
• Understand what authorial voice is. Preserving the writer’s tone is the mark of a great proofreader. Writers might want their script, text or essay corrected, polished and even dramatically restructured but they still want to read the end product and feel that it remains recognisably their work.
• To maintain this sense of personality, take care to preserve any idiosyncrasies of sentence structure or strong stylistic markers, such as rhythm of writing or three part lists. Check for any unusual expressions or repeated terms and make sure to include them in any sections you rewrite to maintain a sense of the writer’s individuality.
• Mimic the style of the author. If their sentences are long and complex, make sure you keep them that way, and use multi-clausal sentences for any text you add in. If they are short and snappy make sure you mimic this in your own additions.
• If they have chosen to use formal or academic language, ensure it remains consistent throughout despite any alterations you make, or if they have adopted a more informal tone, mimic this by inserting your own colloquialisms and popular expressions.

Finally, remember that the easiest way to maintain the writer’s voice when you are proofreading or copy editing is simply to read through the text thoroughly before you begin and keep the tone firmly in mind when you are writing, imagining that you are writing as the author. Always check through again at the end as this is often when proofreaders pick up on sentences that stand out or words that don’t quite fit in with the author’s sense of personality.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the process of carefully combing through a text and correcting any errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation. Along with these superficial mistakes, and picking up on any typos, a proofreader will also check such details as the formatting and layout of a text, the referencing, and the layout and labelling of any tables and diagrams.

A proofreading job involves thoroughly and meticulously correcting any mistakes at all in the text, but does not go further than that. A proofreader will not drastically alter the text itself, removing or restructuring to any great degree, nor will they make any stylistic alterations to improve the flow of the document or how well it reads. A professional proofreader’s job is simply to correct mistakes, not to alter the text.

Copy editing

A copy editor may often carry out some of the responsibilities of a proofreader by correcting minor errors such as typos and spelling mistakes, indeed these aspects are often included in a professional copy editing service. However the job of the copy editor goes deeper than that of a proofreader, as a copy editor also analyses the quality and flow of the text itself and seeks to improve it.

A copy editor may achieve this by dramatically restructuring the text, altering format or suggesting entire sections they feel should be removed or completely rewritten. They may also make stylistic alterations and suggest changes to the text where they feel they are necessary to improve its tone and fully achieve its intended impact.

A copy editor is therefore more stylistically involved with the development of the text itself, whilst a proofreader’s job is confined to a technical edit to remove mistakes. For this reason many copy editors start out as proofreaders, and copy editing is generally considered a more prestigious job in professional publishing than proofreading.

All proofreaders are aware of the importance of picking up spelling and grammar mistakes when proofreading or copyediting, of improving sentence structure and cohesion and generally overhauling the standard of a piece of text. Another important feature of editing services some proofreaders may not have come up against is the inclusion of tables, diagrams or design materials within a text, which can be daunting for the proofreader the first time they are encountered. Follow our simple guide for some top proofreading tips to get you started.

Proofreading tables

Tables may look complex and the first instinct when considering a proofreading job with tables may be to ignore them and simply focus on the text. However it is in fact much easier than you might think to proofread them quickly and effectively for a more complete and thorough edit.

• Check all headings and words within the table for spelling and grammar as many writers are sloppy here, feeling it is a less ‘formal’ area.

• Ensure that any underlining or capitalisation of titles of columns is consistent throughout the table.

• Check that the figures in a particular row or column add up to the correct total shown at the end of the row or bottom of the column; think of it as ‘mathematical proofreading’!

• Ensure that the table is neat and centred – many writers are not familiar with the table tool and may leave extra blank cells which need to be deleted using the table toolbar to make the table look neater and more professional.

• If the table is difficult to easily follow, consider adding alternate colours to adjacent columns to differentiate clearly between them.

Proofreading diagrams

Diagrams are often tailored specifically to the writer’s particular project so there are no hard and fast rules as you may encounter many variations. However the following top tips should help when proofreading texts including diagrams.

• Diagrams should always be spaced centrally on the page, not caught between two pages or awkwardly close to the top or bottom of the text. Ensure there is ample space around the diagram to allow it to be clearly seen without clutter.

• Regardless of the subject matter, diagrams should always be clearly labelled, whether with a code and a key or with neat, clear labels within the diagram itself. If the latter technique is applied, labels should be clearly attached to relevant parts of the diagram with straight, black lines and where necessary descriptions should be enclosed in a text box for neatness and clarity.

• Ensure that labels are uniform in the use of capitalisation and full stops as many writers will vary here.

Proofreading design materials

The trickiest category to define, design materials might consist of drawings, images, logos or plans within a proofreading job. This will often be the area least in need of alteration by the proofreader as it will be so specific to the particular text, but it is worth checking for clarity and definition, especially as many design materials do not transfer well to slides or come out clearly when printed.

Again, the proofreader or copy editor should ensure clarity, neatness and uniformity of font, capital letters and italicisation or underlining in any text or labelling included within the design material.

The job of a proofreader is carefully and meticulously to check through every word of a text, editing out any tiny mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation. Many people think that essay editing ends there, but in fact proofreaders are also responsible for countless other tiny adjustments of structure, style and syntax, leading to a dramatic overall improvement in quality.

Why proofread?

proofreading can seem time-consuming and frustrating but it is essential to producing a polished and perfected final document. Whether you use a professional proofreading service or decide to tackle your own copyediting, it is extremely important to make sure you catch those little errors and slips that creep into all first drafts in order for the finished product to reflect the level of professionalism and high-standards you deserve.

Academic proofreading

From weekly essays to dissertations and thesis proofreading, editing your academic work is extremely important. Often in academic essays, a percentage of the marks available are set aside for accurate spelling and grammar. Proofreading ensures that your essay or dissertation scores the high marks it deserves and prevents the frustration of those all-important marks being lost over silly errors that you simply hadn’t noticed. We are all prone to miss mistakes in our own work, even when checking it carefully through, so the fresh pair of eyes a proofreader provides can be invaluable.

Business proofreading

For business writing, from website text to advertising, copyediting is absolutely imperative to present a professional, competent image to customers and prospective clients. No matter what the sphere of the business, clients will always be unimpressed by grammar or spelling mistakes, and are likely to be put off by obvious slips that haven’t been picked up by proofreaders.

Why not use the spell check?

The spelling and grammar checks available on most modern computers are extremely useful, but ironically have actually led to a rise in small errors going unnoticed. As people become more reliant on technology they have tended to be less vigilant about proofreading, leading to a failure to notice the many mistakes the spell check fails to pick up on.

Common examples include the misuse of homonyms (such as there, their and they’re), which don’t register as ‘mistakes’ with the spell check, American spellings going unnoticed by software and missing punctuation marks, which are sometimes not indicated by the grammar check.

In addition, professional proofreading and editing services often include a much more subtle overhaul of the ordering of points or the format, a polishing touch simply not provided by the simple spell check.

So for flawless, professional text that guarantees an impressive impact, proofreading should always be a key stage in preparing any document.