Using the Wrong Word

One of the most common mistakes missed by proofreaders is the substitution of one word for another, as in this event poster, where the word ‘word’ has been used instead of ‘world’. This kind of mistake is, of course, caused by a simple slip of the fingers whilst typing, but it can be tricky to pick up because our eyes read the word as a legitimate spelling and therefore don’t immediately recognise it as a mistake.

There are two problems with picking out these kinds of errors – one is that modern automatic spelling and grammar checks, which we have come to rely on so much, don’t necessarily pick them up because they are not misspelled. The second is that our human brain is so quick and clever that it actually has a similar ‘auto-correct’ function of its own! It is very common for people to read a sentence like this one, for example, without ever realising the mistake, because their brain corrects it for them automatically:

The very best way to avoid these mistakes when you are proofreading is to read the text through thoroughly not once but twice. The first time, don’t read it for sense, but look carefully at each individual word to be absolutely certain that you have picked up any repetitions or spelling errors. You can also check punctuation and structure on this reading. The second reading is to check the sense and grammar of the piece – you will notice that when you are reading for sense, you pay much less attention to the individual words used, so it is very important to carry out these two, separate checks.

Rush or Passion!

It might sound simple, but another extremely common mistake made by writers when proofreading their own work is to both write the piece and check it in a great rush, or in a flood of passion. Whether it is scribbling out an indignant letter, writing an impassioned poem or penning an angry sign of protest, writing created in a fit of emotion can be some of the best. Proofreading in a rush of emotion, however, is not particularly successful. So, to avoid the embarrassment of these protesters with their hastily written, unchecked signs, try to leave yourself a few hours to cool off before checking through any writing that you have done in a big rush. You might find mistakes you couldn’t possibly have noticed in your previous hot-headed mood!

Printing

‘Printing’ is the word we use for writing one letter at a time, instead of joined up writing. This is often used for big signs or billboards and it can lead to real proofreading problems. Joined up writing not only makes our writing neater, it also teaches our hand and brain a physical memory of how the word should be spelled. So when we print words letter by letter, we make far more spelling mistakes than we normally would. Very often, this involves simply putting two adjacent letters the wrong way round, as in this church billboard. The best way to avoid these mistakes is to proofread each word individually, rather than just taking in the sign as a whole, because they can be such small slips that writers don’t always notice them when they are checking through.

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.

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.

By now, you probably realize that proofreading should correct any spelling, grammar or punctuation mistakes in a text.  But what other tasks should a proofreader undertake?  The “house style” is something all editors need to be aware of, wherever they work.  Here are a few points to keep in mind.

Proofreading should be used to make sure that a text conforms to house style.  “House style” is an agreed set of rules that a college, publisher or company has decided upon so that all their texts conform to an approved pattern.  For a college or university these instructions could be used for essays, dissertatons or other assignments in the approved style.   A publisher’s house style will be applied to any books or journals that their authors’ produce.  Often, the house style will be set out in a style guide or manual.

Why is house style needed?  Top proofreading tips! – Languages vary so much within the bounds of correct usage. There are controversies within English, for example, over the serial comma (or “Oxford comma”).  The style guide makes sure that all editors at a particular company or publisher know the rules they need to stick to so that the text will not confuse the reader.  For instance, to see a page of text where both “organize” and “organise” were used would be confusing and perhaps annoying for the reader.

Proofreading tips

The reader must believe that the text they are reading is an authority.  Even if the reader doesn’t agree with the writer’s point of view, they want to trust that the author is an expert in their field and can be trusted to deliver either the facts or their measured opinion on a topic.  That is the same whether the reader is reading a television instruction manual or a heavy academic text.  One mistake may go unnoticed, but frequent or repeated mistakes will worry the reader and can lead to a breakdown in trust.  The house style isn’t the only thing that the editor needs to be aware of in order for a text to have this sort of authority, however, it can go a long way to helping the text achieve this acceptance.

Are you trying to edit your work to agree with a house style?  Have you tried a proofreading service?  Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.

If you are editing typescripts, here are some classic mistakes to look out for.  It is absolutely vital you do not leave these errors.  They will make you look very careless and for essay or dissertation proofreading, mistakes could lose the writer valuable marks.

1. Its/it’s – Remember that this is an exception to the possessive apostrophe rules:
   
   • Its means “belonging to it”.
   • It’s means “it is”.
2. Your/you’re
   • Your = “belonging to you” (the “you” can be singular or plural)
   • You’re = “you are”
3. Their/there/they’re
   • Their = “belonging to them”
   • here = refers to a place or used as a pronoun “There was a time…”
   • They’re = “they are”
4. i.e./e.g.
   • i.e. = “in other words”
   • e.g. = “for example”
5. Transposed letters

   These are errors that crop into typed work because the typist has put their fingers down in the wrong order, for example, for/fro, from/form. The spell check doesn’t pick these words up because they are proper words – they just shouldn’t be in this part of the text. This sort of mistake is fairly common and highlights the need for human editors to read through text (rather than just running a spell check). Slow your reading speed down and make sure you read every word.

6. Consistency

   If you allow the text to use “center” in one place and “centre” in another, this will be jarring for the reader. Decide at the start whether you will be using US or British English spellings. If you are editing work for a publishing house they will usually tell you that there is a particular style guide that you should use. Sometimes you will have to make choices about each inconsistent word that you come across. Record your decisions. When you have finished your edit you will have a list of editorial decisions that you have made which you will pass back to the publisher. These will be used to instruct the typesetter.

7. Gender

   Consistency also applies to gender. In a bid to be politically correct some writers will start a sentence referring to ‘he’ and then switch to using ‘she’ to refer to the same person as the sentence or paragraph continues. This can be confusing or annoying for the reader. If you (or the writer of the text) wants to vary the gender for politically correct purposes that is fine, but do make sure that the meaning of each sentence and paragraph remains clear.

   Are their particular English grammar errors that you find easy to miss? Share your proofreading tips our readers! Post a comment below. For more advice on how to edit see our blog post on professional editors’ duties.

It’s all very well to be told you need to improve your grammar, but what exactly is ‘grammar’?

A set of rules

In order to use a language and communicate effectively with other users you need an accepted set of rules.  This set of rules is the grammar of the language.  In any language the grammar can be complex and there will be plenty of exceptions to the rules.  “A grammar” can also be used to mean a book that collects the rules of the language together.  Often the rules can change depending on what part of the country you are in.  It can be perfectly correct for one dialect to use a certain phrase, while in another part of the country language users would think that same phrase is ungrammatical, lazy or just plain wrong.

For some languages, there are no grammar books.  Just because the grammar has not been recorded in a book doesn’t mean it isn’t an accepted set of rules.

Other communication skills

Grammar alone won’t help you communicate in a language.  You also need to know the correct pronunciation and plenty of vocabulary.

Another interesting point is that you can construct sentences that are grammatically correct, but that make no sense! For instance: “The bland red thoughts felt yoghurt.”

Many people feel they don’t know the grammar of their own language because they haven’t been formally taught it – or they didn’t pay attention to the lessons at school.  However, if you are able to communicate in your native language, then you do know its grammar.  Written and spoken grammar in a language can be slightly different.  Things which are acceptable in the written language can seem overly formal when spoken, for example.

Further reading

For a list of good books on grammar that can get you started see the Publishing Training Centre’s website:

http://www.train4publishing.co.uk/books/editorial/

These books are the ones recommended to professional editors.

Do you have any particular editing queries?  Please let us know.  Post a comment below.

Confusables are a common problem that editors find in texts.  These are words that may sound (or almost sound) the same, but they are spelt differently and mean different things.  They could be words like: Site/cite/sight, their/there/they’re, to/too/two, passed/past, effect/affect.

There are also confusing words that have meanings that are very close, but they need to be used with care.  These words may have a similar root, but they do have different meanings.  They can need careful thought: Disinterested/uninterested, ensure/assure, comprise/compose, infer/imply.

These words cause problems for native speakers and foreign learners alike.  They tend to slip through into published text because the spell check on the computer won’t pick them up – if you wrote ‘weather’ when you meant ‘whether’, you’ve spelt a word correctly and the computer isn’t clever enough to pick out that you’ve used the wrong word.

Why bother?

Why should you care?  Won’t the reader of the text understand the meaning by looking at the context?  Will they even notice that there is a mistake when the words are so similar?  Plenty of organizations and companies make it clear that using correct English is essential to them.  On their website the BBC points out that if journalists use the wrong word (in writing or verbally) it reflects badly on the BBC and it jeopardises their good reputation.  The Plain English Campaign claims that around £500 million pounds of the British Government’s money has  been saved by the work of the Campaign over the last 2 decades.  Poor communication wastes time and therefore money!

There are no short cuts for dealing with confusables.  Taking some time to focus on them and learn their uses is the only way to avoid embarrassing errors.  However, there are some great websites to point you towards the most commonly mistaken words:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_20.htm

http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/difficulties.html

For further help, Fowler’s Modern English Usage gives a detailed description of the correct way to use many confusing English words as well as flagging up grammar and punctuation problems.  The book was originally published in 1926, but remains a popular reference book for editors to this day.

You can test your knowledge of confusables by trying a test here:-

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_72.htm#confusex1

Are there other parts of the English language that are causing you confusion?  If you have particular editing problems please post a comment below.

This blog will take you through – step by step – how editors do their work, what they are looking for and why.  The information given here is based on how professional editors are trained to work in publishing houses.

How does an editor show that there is a mistake?

To show that there is an error in the text the proofreader marks this on the text using proofreading symbols.  To get an idea of the sorts of symbols that might appear, have a look at this:-

http://www.designerstoolbox.com/designresources/proofing/

The proofreader marks that there is a mistake and a typesetter or designer makes the changes. The proofreader checks the images, tables and any other visual material as well as the main body of the text.  Corrections may be needed in a graph or diagram, just as much as in the body of the text.  In some cases a typesetter might even put the wrong image with the wrong caption.  This could cause total confusion for the reader.

The proofreader marks the correction in the text as well as in the margin of the page.  For example, they might cross out a letter in the text and put a deletion symbol in the nearest margin.  Imagine that there is an imaginary line down the centre of the page; if the correction happens to the left hand side of that line then the proofreader marks the correction on that side.  The reason for putting a symbol in the margin is to make it easier to spot that there are corrections.  At a glance a typesetter can see whether there are any corrections on a page by having a quick look at the margins.

Corrections are marked in different colours.

• Red is used if the mistake was made by the typesetter.
• Blue corrections are made for other corrections, for example, if you are proofreading a book, the author may decide that they want new alterations.  These would be marked in blue.

The reason for the different colour marks is often to do with pricing.  Imagine that the typesetter is working on a book.  The typesetter will correct text for free if they have made the errors themselves.  If, however, it is the publisher or the author who is requesting changes, then those are not the typesetters’ fault and so they charge for these corrections.

Some professional writers may feel their language skills are exemplary and they don’t need someone else to check their work.  When you have all this material at your fingertips you may wonder why you would need a professional editing service to check over your work.

Why edit?

If you are preparing material for publication (whether it is for a leaflet or for a book) you need to be aware of the reasons editing takes place. An editor does three things:

• Makes sure that the author hasn’t made any errors.  These may be completely unintentional (such as typing mistakes made when the author is preparing the work under pressure).
• Makes sure that the reader can understand.  The author may be quite brilliant, but imagine if you have a professor writing a text book for GCSE students.  The author knows their subject well, but if they use text that is too complicated for the reader than the work becomes unusable.  The editor keeps the reader in mind.
• Makes sure that instructions for the designers and typesetters are clear.  Material needs to be prepared by designers and typesetters before final files are ready for the printer.  If the work is produced in a tiny font or the pages are badly laid out, this makes it harder for the reader to understand.  The comprehension process is influenced by the look of the page.

The different editors and their roles

In book and journal publishing there are basically two types of editor working directly on the text: the copy editor and the proofreader.

The copy editor sees the work first.  They check it for:-

• Consistency – They check that language is consistent throughout, e.g. if a word is hyphenated or capitalized then it is each time it appears, if the text uses ‘ise’ or ‘ize’ spelling this appears throughout,
• Mark up – They use editing code to explain to the printers which titles should appear as chapter headings or section headings, which font should be used, indentation  and so on.

When the text has been laid out as it will be printed a draft (or ‘proof’) is sent to the proofreader.  They will check:-

• Spelling.
• Grammar.
• They also check that all the copy editor’s instructions have been followed by the typesetter and designer.

Professional text editing makes a real difference to the accuracy and the reader’s enjoyment of the printed product.