Proofreading and Editing Service

Many customers who have used a proofreading and editing service in the past, especially if the service provider has proved to be very reliable and effective, they know first-hand how their written documents has been improved upon to get the right result. Due to this, some customers are curious about what kinds of approaches professionals take when revising a piece of writing.

In some cases, an author, a student, or a copywriter is interested in knowing how they themselves can proofread and edit their work to the same standard without having to pay for these types of service. Even though I am a professional proofreader who believes it is always best for a trained, experienced professional pair of eyes to look over a written document, I understand this perspective, yet despite their highly-affordable nature and the impressive return on investment associated with these types of services, not everyone has the funds needed to proofread or edit every single one of their documents.

For this reason, I thought I would write an article that briefly explains several of the common techniques and procedures that are used in a proofreading and editing service. This article is by no means comprehensive, but it should provide some directions that people who are interested in proofreading or editing written documents can follow to improve their performance.

The spellchecker is your friend, but not always!

Spellcheckers are best used once the proofreading or editing process has been completed. They are extremely effective at catching blatant errors you may have overlooked, and they can identify many of the errors that modern text editors obscure (e.g., double spacing between words). Nevertheless, a critical point to note is that spellcheckers are truly awful when it comes to certain types of errors (e.g., homophonic errors, punctuation errors, typographical errors, and nonsense).

Start from the end, read backwards, and do so word by word

This is one that sounds ridiculous, but as soon as you try it, you’ll see how effective it is. It’s self-explanatory, so give it a go.

Read before you proofread

The core of this strategy is to pass through the document twice. On the first pass, you should only read the document. Resist the temptation to make changes if you find any mistakes! Then, on the second pass, correct any errors that you come across.

The benefit to this approach in a proofreading and editing service is that, because you only make corrections and changes after having read through the entire document, you have a clear view of the document’s trajectory, arguments, and problem areas.

When I tell aspiring proofreaders or editors to do this, a common objection is that it will take twice as long without improving the outcome.However, in my experience, the two-pass approach is actually much more efficient than the one-pass approach. Try it and see for yourself!

Book Proofreading Services - Proofessor.co.uk

People recruit professional proofreaders for many reasons. For example, international students whose first language is not English often ask proofreaders to work with them in order to catch typos and other mistakes in their essays and assignments. Academics and business people also benefit from having a professional service look over their scholarly papers, press releases, or any other type of presentational content.

However, demand is now growing in this space for book proofreading services. In fact, many of the most popular writers today recruit proofreaders and editors to review their work, including Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, and Sam Harris. This reflects the fact that, even if someone is a great writer, a proofreader’s job is to be objective, efficient and offer quality affordable services which more often than not prove to be indispensable.

Whether you are writing an e-book, a novel, an autobiography, a memoir, or the latest instalment in your fantasy series, you need to do everything you can to ensure that avoidable mistakes do not affect the integrity of your work. If you are a new writer and you have just finished your first book, you should recognise that many publishers will stop reading a manuscript if it contains too many errors.

Likewise, even the most in-demand writers today, as mentioned before Stephen King and J. K. Rowling, recognise that they cannot consider their book finished and publication-ready without ordering book proofreading services. A great story, a highly informative non-fiction book, or the much-sought-after instalment in your long-running series, may require a skilled provider to perfect and refine them.

There are many reasons why book proofreading services are essential, irrespective of whether you are a famous writer or a relatively new or inexperienced writer. Here are two of them:

·         Free yourself up to focus on the work you do best. First and foremost, you are a writer. And, importantly, it is rarely the case that a great writer is also a great proofreader. Proofreaders have specific knowledge, skills, and abilities that allow them to find and correct avoidable mistakes in a piece of writing in an extremely efficient way. Therefore, recruiting a professional for your latest book ensures that your writing is corrected in an effective and precise way, and it allows you to move onto your next project without getting caught up in the uncreative, objective, and analytical proofreading process.

·         As a writer, you become overly familiar with what you have written. After having spent weeks, months, or even years writing your book, you will become so familiar with your writing that it will no longer be possible to undertake the proofreading process in an objective way. As a result, the writer of a piece of text is much more likely to miss mistakes because they already know what they want to communicate.

All in all, book proofreading services save you valuable time and effort when it comes to the process of revising and correcting written work. A proofreader who has received specific training makes them uniquely qualified to improve and correct written work. As a result, this allows – a writer – to move on to the work that they do best, rather than getting caught up in the revision process.

Editing Services UK

Do you think you could benefit from professional proofreading services? To answer this question, knowing your needs is critically important. So too is the question! What is the purpose of these kinds of services and what is the process. This will allow you to match the service you choose with your needs in an accurate way, ensuring that your expectations are met and, more importantly, that your document is written in the way you want it to be written and presented.

You need to know your needs for several reasons. For example, if you just need someone to check over your document for basic errors (e.g., punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors), you probably shouldn’t recruit a professional to provide editing services. This is because these services, which tend to cost more than standard proofreading services, are aimed at writers who need more than just basic error correction. Depending on the provider you choose, you may find that one provider’s editing services are cheaper than another provider’s proofreading services, but it’s always worth trying to match your chosen service with your specific needs as precisely as possible.

The purpose of editing services is to focus on a relatively small group of fundamental issues. These issues include basic errors (i.e., all of those areas covered by a standard proofreading service), as well as issues like concision (i.e., condensing your writing), clarity of expression (i.e., saying what you want to say in a readable way), structure (i.e., choosing the best way to present your ideas in an orderly way), and style (i.e., choosing the right tone of voice).

Now that you know what the purpose of editing services actually is, and also how to determine whether it’s worth hiring a professional editor over a professional proofreader, you’re in a good position to begin searching for a reliable company to assist you. As mentioned before, there are many companies out there that specialise in these services. Depending on your budget and your area of study, this should help narrow down your options somewhat.

Overall, recruiting an editor to help you add a professional polish to your document is always a better idea than editing your own piece of writing. Many good service providers are inexpensive to work with, and if you find a provider with a proven track record, you’ll likely get a tremendous return on investment. Editors can save you time, improve the quality of your work, and – in many cases –add a special something to your work that allows it to stand out, increasing its chance of being published or attaining higher marks for presentation.