Proofreading Tips

Proofreading Tips from The Proofreaders

Proofreading, Editing, Comparison Work, Website Proofreading

• Read it out loud to yourself or someone else. You’ll be surprised at how much more slowly you need to read when you’re reading out loud. This activity alone will help you find more errors.
• Proofread from a physical copy. At The Proofreaders, we always proofread using a physical copy as our final read through. You will be amazed how many more errors can be caught when reading from paper versus a computer monitor.
• Pretend you know nothing about your topic. See if you can understand exactly what you are trying to convey.
• Ask yourself what is the purpose of the document or online content. See if your writing effectively answers that question.
• If using a word processing program, take advantage of its spell check function – but don’t rely solely upon it. It’s a handy tool that can supplement any proofreading or editing project.
• If you’re not 100% sure about the usage of a word or its spelling, look it up. Chances are your readers will know it has been misused or misspelled.

Don’t overlook proofreading these very important areas:

Index
Table of Contents
Table of Figures
Table of Authorities
Page Numbers
Headers and Footers
Citations
Cross References
Quotations
Spelling of Names
Section Numbers
Legal Reference

Contact The Proofreaders if you need help or get stuck. We offer free estimates.