Processes to Improve Your Proofreading

People are always alarmed to find out how difficult it is to spot common proofreading mistakes. Ultimately, the human brain isn’t wired up to spot tiny, abstract details like missing words, incorrectly written words, and other similar errors; this is the reason why professional proofreading services are in such high demand today.

If you can’t afford a proofreading service for your latest publication, or if you would simply like to try your hand at this difficult task, then this article will be of benefit. Over the next few paragraphs, this article draws attention to three of the practical processes you can apply during your next proofreading session to greatly improve your accuracy, effectiveness, and speed.

 

1. Go slowly to save time

This is somewhat paradoxical – how does proofreading slowly save you time?

Well, the answer is simple. You save time by slowly proofreading your work because this saves you from having to go back at a later time and correct all the errors you missed by rushing.

When you receive a professional proofreading service, one of the tried-and-tested methods that your experienced proofreader will apply is to check through each sentence slowly and methodically. This allows them to see every word, every syllable, and every phrase, ensuring it’s digested properly.

Also, going slowly – despite being difficult and requiring discipline – provides an opportunity to check, double-check, and triple-check the document.

 

Image: In proofreading, slow but steady wins the race

2. Move through the text problem by problem

When you proofread your work, proceeding through it (slowly and methodically) sentence by sentence, it’s important not to try to find every single problem in only one pass through. If you try to fix everything in one go, you’ll end up doing a half-baked job.

Instead, if you check through your document several times, and each time focus only on a single type of issue (e.g., punctuation on one pass, spelling on another pass, and so on), you can stay focused and significantly reduce your rate of errors.

 

Image: While proofreading, focus on each problem category separately

3. Check footnotes separately

Many people think that because footnotes are usually “boring” to read (i.e., they typically contain only reference information intended for hardcore scholars), it’s acceptable not to check them as rigorously as you would the other parts of your document (e.g., your scientific abstract or your conclusion).

This is a serious mistake, however. As a matter of fact, if you don’t use proofreading services to check that your footnotes are written in good English (which is actually a tremendous time-saver!), you should devote specific time to checking them and only them.

When you perform your separate footnote check, be sure to increase the font size because footnotes are usually very small (remember to switch the font size back, though). This will ensure that when the proofreading process is finished, every part of your document is publication-ready.

 

Image: Footnotes need love and attention, too!