Proof Positive
By Guest | September 17, 2011 |
Kath here. Please welcome Randall Davidson to WU. Randall is a cofounder of ProofreadingServices. Us, a proofreading company that offers manuscript proofreading. Randall was good enough to share his must-do proofreading tips and best practices with other writing enthusiasts. Thanks, Randall!
One of the hardest parts of writing is proofreading your own work. These 10 proofreading tips can help you learn how to distance yourself from your own work and discover your mistakes and issues with clarity.
- Put it away. Proofreading your novel immediately after you have written it can lead to overlooking even the most glaring errors simply because you read what you expect to read. Give yourself a few days or even weeks so that you can review your novel with fresh eyes.
- Ditch the distractions. Just as it is difficult to write with the phone ringing or people interrupting, it is also frustrating to try to proofread surrounded by distractions. Find a quiet place where you will be free from interruptions before starting the process.
- Take frequent breaks. Most people don’t read an entire novel in a single sitting, so you shouldn’t either. Proofread your novel in chunks of several chapters at a time so that you don’t miss errors due to fatigue.
- Use the assistance of others. Ask someone with a solid understanding of grammar and composition and a love of your chosen genre to read your novel and give you an unbiased opinion. Ask them for some of their best proofreading tips as well.
- Don’t rely too heavily on spelling and grammar checkers. They are handy tools and certainly have their place in writing, but they are far from infallible. There is simply no replacement for the human brain.
- Read your paragraphs or chapters out of order. This will switch things up just enough that your mind won’t remember what’s next and you’ll be more likely to catch those little trouble spots.
- Be aware of your most frequent errors. Do you misspell words when you are on a roll? Are you a comma abuser? Is your work dotted throughout with ellipses? Print reminders to yourself on Post-its and keep them handy so that you can reign in your most annoying habits.
- Check and recheck. Those sentences that already required revisions need to be double and triple-checked for errors. Errors in tense, spelling, or phrasing may have sneaked past you due to the original correction.
- Keep reference books handy. No one can possibly keep all the rules for grammar, punctuation, and spelling straight all the time. This is where thesauruses, dictionaries, and style books come into play. You should use them often.
- Read your novel aloud. Sometimes your ears will catch the errors that your eyes missed.
Proofreading may not be the most exciting step in the writing process, but it very well may be one of the most critical. Use these proofreading tips to ensure your novel is properly polished and ready for the next step toward publication.
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Randall,
Thanks for the great tips. Line-editing is one of the most tedious, but important aspects of the review process. It’s hard to see some of the mistakes in your own work. If you can afford it, it’s best to hire a proofreader (which is different than a book editor). Thanks again.
All sound advice. I especially second the recommendation of proofreading chapters out of order. This is one situation where you don’t want to get immersed in the flow of the story.
Thanks for not including “reading your work backwards.” While it might work, it’s extremely difficult to read an entire book from back to front. Reading aloud, on the other hand, is the best tip on the list.
These are very helpful, Randall — thank you! Author Randy Susan Meyers had another great tip — she suggested using a voice software to read your work. I’ve tried it, and it definitely helps!
It is really difficult to put things away sometimes but I recently edited something from several months ago in way I never could have if I just kept hammering at it. It was pretty rewarding actually. I’ve also been keeping several reference books at my desk that I’ve been using for everything, even proofreading personal stuff for practice. “Be aware of your most frequent errors” is one I’m going to work on. I still have some old habits to break.
Thanks, Randall. This will be useful, especially 6 & 7.
Recently an editor friend read my manuscript and said, “This is one of the cleanest drafts I’ve ever read, there were very few typos.” I pride myself on good grammar and punctuation and I had proofread that thing to death. What had she found? Argh.
Thanks for the great post on pointers of proofreading! Although I still have a little bit to go before I am ready to start revising my first draft, I am already drawing up a battle plan! Your post was very timely.
I appreciate the suggestions. The hardest one for me is to wait a while. So, I ask my friends to check it out and while they are reading I take a break. Those two work hand in hand for me.
Thanks!
Randall, thanks for this post, many are responding to tweets with excerpts from your good list.
While this may be what you’re getting at in Number 8, “Check and recheck,” I’d go further with an extra point, myself, called “Be sure you haven’t created NEW errors.”
I can’t tell you how frequently I’ve seen messes made for all the right reasons when a proper change ended up precipitating another problem because the editor (sometimes this was, ahem, me) didn’t take a step back to see if any “editorial artifacts” were left on the page. It can be a pretty thankless discovery when one of these babies gets through.
This is very handy! You have written some good tips! :)
Great tips and reminders. I know I’ve fallen prey to #8, where I changed a sentence as I’m going through the proofreading stage, and I mispell a word or it affects the surrounding paragraph.
Great advice! Particularly the one about putting the work away for a few days…
Actually, this is useful advice for anyone who writes, even business letters! I remember I taught myself never to send an email late in the day, but to set aside for the next morning. Looking at it with fresh eyes was an…eye opener!
I need to affix points 3, 6 and 8 somewhere like my computer screen. Or tattoo them on my person.
Some great tips here! All of which I will be applying to my own work.
Thanks for the encouragement! :)
Just like Claude said – I think the most important one is to put your work to the side and return to it some time later (the first point on the list). My worst flaw as a writer is actually being crippled when it comes to spot spelling errors. No matter how many times I read something, or however thorough I am, I always end up with mistakes.
Excellent tips. I’ve revised several times, so I thought this post would be full of the obvious, but I picked up some helpful pointers. I especially look forward to trying #6. Thank you!
Another good tip is to use a pen to follow along and point at each word as you proofread. It will help you not skip over all those little inconsequential words that your brain likes to skip over. If you also read aloud at the same time, you will catch a lot more errors than ever before. Then if you also slow it down to point at and distinctly pronounce not just every word, but every syllable as well, your accuracy will increase even more. It takes longer, but it’s worth it if you want a really clean manuscript.
[…] the reader be just as informed and excited about how we arrange the words on the page as we are? Randall Davidson,cofounder of Proofreading Services offers 10 tips for proof reading your own work on this Writer […]
I especially like the tip about reading aloud. Reading aloud TO A GROUP where each holds a copy to read along is even more effective, but it might be hard to find a group to sit still long enough for an entire book.