How To Proofread And Never Miss A Single Error
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Proofreading Techniques
errror First published April 3, 1992
How did you do proofreading examples on last week’s proofreading quiz? First published April 10, 1992 “Porn and Beans” and other proofreadingProofreading Checklist
classics First published May 1, 1992 First published April 3, 1992 How to proofread and never miss a single errror By Stephen Wilbers We all editing and proofreading worksheets have horror stories we can tell about proofreading errors, about those times when, despite our best efforts, something slipped past our vigilant gaze. Sometimes these lapses are relatively harmless. Other times, if we’re lucky, our readers don’t even notice. All too often, however, the errors are obvious and painfully embarassing. Four years ago this May, proofreading exercises for example, the University of Wisconsin awarded nearly 4,000 diplomas with the name of the state spelled “Wisconson.” Amazingly, six months passed before anyone noticed and brought it to the University’s attention. “We do proofread the diplomas,” said one official, “but we concentrate on the name and the degree. We usually consider that the standard information is correct. It just didn’t occur to us that this could happen.” But it did happen, and the printing company ended up paying for replacements. Once during my days as an administrator at the University of Minnesota I was serving on a search committee. Of the more than 130 applications, one stood out. The application letter began with a reference to the position of “associate vice president for student affairs at the University of Minnesota” and concluded with a statement about “the real reason I want to come to the University of Maryland is . . .” The committee members recognized the gaffe as a word-
Holton,” wrote the revered Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in a letter, “When you write the editor of a newspaper for a job,
Proofreading Symbols
other things being equal, you stand a better shot if you spell proofreading test his name right.”  We’ve all been in Mr. Holton's shoes: you finish a piece of writing only
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to find a mistake or typo that you didn’t see before. It happens even though you’ve read your text a million times. And once you see the mistake, it looks http://www.wilbers.com/part7.htm so obvious. How did you miss it?   Fortunately, there’s a group of people who spend a lot of time looking for and catching these mistakes: copyeditors.* As a group, we may have a reputation for nitpickery, but we still have some tricks up our collective sleeve that you can apply to your everyday writing, from emails to print http://www.jimdo.com/2014/12/09/11-proofreading-tips-to-help-you-write-with-confidence/ materials, websites to resumes.  In a world of texts and tweets, is proofreading still important? You bet. “Unnecessary errors diminish trust and credibility, so mistakes in professional copy are costly,” Stan Carey, a professional editor and proofreader with his own blog on language, told me in an interview. Sloppy writing makes people wonder what else you’re messing up on. If that isn’t enough motivation for you, know that proper writing helps Google identify “trustworthy” websites, which in turn boosts your search engine ranking.  If you’ve experienced too many of those “D’oh” moments with your writing, take to heart some of these proofreading tips from the pros:  1. Your brain is not designed to proofread First, it’s important to understand why proofreading can be so hard. One reason is that proofreading takes time and attention, two things that are in short supply these days. In a world of instant communication and quick deadlines, it’s often difficult to give a piece the time it needs.  The second reason has to do with how the human brain w
Package Publishing Packages Book Cover Design Print Book Formatting eBook Formatting eBook Distribution Marketing Author Websites Giveaway Campaign Book Blurbs Book Launch Blog Writing Publishing Marketing Writing Prompts Writing Comics Blog index Resources https://www.standoutbooks.com/4-proofreading-tips/ Recommended Reading Press Release Template Marketing Plan Template Story Checklist Beta Reader Questionnaire Writing Quote Generator Contact Account 4 Simple Tips To Catch More Errors When Proofreading August 10, 2016 by Robert Wood 18 Comments Pin Tweet Share +1 EmailShares 246Proofreading will make your story better. There are few guarantees anyone can give about art – even fewer that apply how to to every individual – but that’s one of them. Proofreading, in fact, is the single most effective way to make your story better; a magic bullet that can transform a piece of writing from unpublishable to unbelievable. It’s a shame, then, that it’s something from which our brains seem inherently repulsed. If you’re an author, you’ve probably had the experience how to proofread of sitting down to proofread a piece of work and ending up doing anything else. Writer’s block is a piece of cake next to proofer’s block. What’s more, our brains hate proofreading so much that they’ll even convince us we can’t do it, or that it doesn’t need doing, or that it doesn’t need doing yet – anything to avoid carrying out this onerous, completely necessary task. As an editor who has proofread many different works, I’ve got some experience in convincing my brain to stop complaining and get to work. Some of that is training, some is experience, and some is minor tips and tricks that make the whole endeavor easier to pull off. In this article, I’ll be sharing four of those basic tips and explaining how they can make your proofreading easier, more effective, and more likely to happen in the first place. Before that, though, I need to clear something up. Getting forensic Something that crops up again and again in discussions of proofreading is that it’s just reading with purpose – that an
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