Proofreading is not easy for two good reasons. The first is that if you want perfect written English then you need at least a PHD, and secondly because it takes a lot of discipline and a fantastic attention span to be able to proofread fully and correctly. It is very easy to miss things and very easy to confuse the rules of proofreading. The tips below will help improve your proofreading skills.
Get a PHD in English, or…
You may not be able to get a PHD in English, but at least understand that the subject is far deeper and more complex than you may understand. You need to proofread to your own level, which means first establishing how much you know about written English and then improving your knowledge of it. Nail the basics before you move on.
You then need to do something that other articles are not going to suggest, you need to lower the standard of written English within your text so that it matches what you know about written English.
What this means is that when you proofread you are going to see a lot of sentences that look correct but that you are not sure about. You need to change those sentences to sit in line with your understanding of written English. It means changing all the sentences that you are only 95% sure are correct. It does mean you are lowering the standard of your written English, but at least it will be correct written English.
This is why you need to improve your learning when it comes to written English. If your understanding only revolves around very simple sentences, then you will end up with a lot of text that is minus commas, semi colons, hyphens and maybe even quotation marks (if you don’t know how to use them either).
The point that is trying to be hammered home is…
Yes, lowering the standard of your written text is not a good thing, but proofreading is about making the text correct. If you do not have a PHD in English, then you do not know all the rules to written English. It means your text can only be “correct” in terms of written English rule as high as your knowledge of written English extends.
You can write a fantastic piece of work, but if you want to proofread it so that it is 100% correct you are probably going to have to change a lot of sentences to ones that you are 100% sure are correct. Failing that you could keep your fantastic writing and to hell with it being 100% correct, or you can use the services listed below to help you.
Quite a lot of people use Grammarbase because they are efficient. You can learn the science of proofreading and then have these professionals check your work. If you have done a good job then they should not be able to find any errors with your work. If you haven’t done a good job when you proofread, then your work will be returned with a lot of corrections.
They can have your work proofread and back to you within three hours. Have your questions answered with their customer support team. The quality of your work may be improved by one of their in-house proofreaders. They only hire people to work in-house, which means you will not have your work checked by a freelancer. It also means they can keep your work confidential if you request. The proofreaders they use are experienced and the system is run on a secure network so that no others get hold of your work.
The prices are fair that they do not simply run your work through a spelling and grammar checker and send it back; they actually have a seasoned professional go through it with a fine toothcomb. Their online reputation speaks for itself in regards to how well trusted and respected they are.
This is a nice little tool for checking your work. Despite the fact that it has a pricing guide it is actually free. They do not seem to charge for use of the tool, which is good because it is handy for learning how to proofread your work. It is also good for if you want to improve your skills because you can learn from the things it shows you and learn from your mistakes so that you may apply what you have learned to your next piece.
This is a piece of software that allows you to see the errors you have made. Paste your work into the tool and it will show you a results screen with a bunch of suggestions on it. The suggestions will give you a good idea of where you may be going wrong and where you may need improvement with your writing skills.
Comments
I would like to thank you for sharing with us this interesting article. Indeed, proofreading is crucial to writing. Sometimes, I have to proofread my work again and again till I get fed up with it. Perhaps, this is because I am a bit perfectionist. I, also, hand over my work to other people so that they can proofread it for me and it really works.