Learning to proofread is not a short-term deal. If you are not highly skilled in English grammar and composition, you have a bit of work.
Is there help if you feel like learning how to be a better proofreader of your own writing? Of course. But the real question is if you have the time or want to take the time and learn how to go through the entire process.
If You Make the Decision to Become Your Own Proofreader
Here’s what you are in for if you are looking for ways to proofread your own work.
First, study proofreading techniques. What are the proofreading steps that the experts take? For this, you will need to access sites that share the methods that professionals use in their everyday work.
Access online sites that provide proofreading practice exercises for adults. Complete these exercises and learn to identify proofreading errors. These will let you develop an effective strategy that is used by professionals in the field.
Be prepared to spend some time pouring over proofreading examples, and working on the error found in the text. Eventually, you may become capable of using methods and strategies and work like a real pro. Every example of proofreading completed while learning tips and techniques will improve your skills.
Is this how you want to spend your time? If so, read on for some additional proofreading tips and tricks.
- Learn to work in Word
Let`s find out how to proofread a document in Word. Its function will pop up a lot of these errors, and even show how to fix them. You can use this and memorize what things to look for when proofreading as you check your own writing, or you can just take their word for it and move on.
- Get a writing guide text
There are plenty of grammar and composition texts that you can use for learning and referencing. Students can use these as tools, as they look to improve their own writing. This can be an effective resource if you feel like studying and bringing your skills on the next level.
- Look for the following
There are basically four things to look for when proofreading – mistakes in sentence structure (fragments, run-ons), spelling, punctuation, and word usage. If you have good skills in looking out for these things, you can probably fix your own mistakes.
- Use online apps
There are plenty of online apps with software that will check any types of essays, papers, articles, etc. There are basic functions that are free, reviewing your uploaded documents, pointing out errors, and fixing them. Getting a better review, along with suggestions on how to fix the mistakes, though, means using the premium, fee-based option. Still, these can be proofreading tips and techniques learning tools as well – over time, you may become better at fixing your own errors.
Do You Really Want to Do All of This?
If you do, more power to you! But if you are a busy student or business writer, how much time are you willing to spend learning how to proofread professionally? Our guess is that you have better ways to spend your time.
The goal is crafting pieces of writing that have good content, whether that is an essay, research paper, blog post, resume, dissertation, lab report, or some piece of business or professional writing. Your focus is on the content. So, why would you spend time learning how to edit when others can do this in a professional manner instead of customers? And how many words can you proofread in an hour vs. how many a professional can do?
The best way to proofread is to find someone else who is doing this for a living.
How to ask someone to proofread your stuff? It’s easy. Look for a freelancer or a reputable professional writing service that offers editing services, pay them, and receive quality content. This is the essence of working smarter, not harder and that`s exactly what experienced content creators do.
Finding the Right Company
You can certainly do a Google search for services that can alleviate the proofreading process for you. And you’ll get thousands of results. Now, you can spend your time looking at a bunch of them to see if they are frauds or if they might be on the up-and-up. That`s not effective. That`s working harder not smarter.
Just stop. Instead of doing all of this work yourself and trying to understand how to proofread better, check out writing service review sites that have already done the work and can give you the editing services that are rated highly based on objective reviews and actual customer feedback. They have guidelines for evaluating such services and use them when rating various companies. And they will even point seekers in unique directions, such as proofreading English, Spanish, and French online resources.
Be Smart
There is no need to be an expert proofreader, make up your own good proofreading strategy, spend sleepless nights looking for every single error, no matter what type of writing has to be produced. Take advantage of all of the resources you have and get this done by someone else, and spend your time enjoying yourself and improving the skills you`ll actually need.
Posted by Chris M.