Tips for perfect proofreading

It’s turned into proofing week here at the Emphasis blog. In this final part, we aim to finish turning you into mistake-spotting machines.

How

Stocking up on red pens is just the beginning. Follow these tips to ensure you always prove your proofreading prowess.

•  Proofread in the morning if you can – if you’re tired, you’re more likely to miss things.

•  Proofread at least twice – once for sense, once for technical accuracy.

•  Read backwards for typos so you’re not distracted by the meaning of the words.

•  Use a blank sheet of paper to cover material not yet proofed and point to each word as you go.

•  Print documents off to proofread – it’s much more effective than trying to do it onscreen. [Note: If, however, your office or personal policy is to minimise printing for the sake of the environment, at least use a pen or pencil to point to each word onscreen as you go.]

What

Look out for:

•  clusters of mistakes: the elation of spotting one may lead you to miss the one right next to it

•  repetition of words – particularly split over two lines

•  commonly mixed up words, eg there and their, or principle and principal

•  little words – big words draw the eye

•  brackets and speech marks – is the second one in the right place?

And finally

Here are a few clarifying pointers  worth raising:

•  It’s very easy to overlook titles, subtitles and headings, or subject lines in email (particularly as they won’t be spellchecked). Don’t!

•  Depending on your company’s style, you may not need to put a comma after the salutation and sign off in letters and emails. If you do use them, be consistent – ie use them after both

•  ‘Its’ only needs an apostrophe when it’s short for ‘it is’ or ‘it has’. When it shows possession, it doesn’t have one.

•  If you’re having trouble placing an apostrophe in a less-than-familiar construction (eg each other’s work), just reverse it like so: the work of each other (not others). So here it needs to go after the r.

•  You’d only put a full stop – or any other punctuation – inside a bracket if the brackets contain a full sentence. If they contain an aside, the punctuation will be outside. For example:

From now on, let’s make sure that nothing is sent out without first being proofread (this includes email).

Happy proofing!