Pebblepup's Writing Den

Proofreading is an important step in the writing process. This is the point where you look for clarity, typos, grammatical mistakes and such things. It’s important if you want people to think of you as a serious writer. It’s the step that follows writing the first draft.

I do my own proofreading although sometimes I have the computer read my work to me. Other authors have people read their work for them. These people make notes on what doesn’t make sense. Then the authir can correct any errors and point out places where the description is too scanty.

The computer doesn’t do most of that, but it does a great job of finding the grammar and spelling errors. There’s nothing like a typo to pop a reader out of a story. That’s something we want to avoid. We won’t end typos. They happen. All we can do is reduce the number of them. This is the purpose of proofreading.

You can do proofreading anyplace you read a book. If you have paper and pencil, you need something you can use to write on. So anywhere you write is a good place to proofread. If you have an electronic copy of your piece, make sure you read it in an app that lets you make comments and highlights. Don’t be afraid to mark up your work. It’s all part of the process.

How you proofread is up to you. Generally, reading the piece aloud is the best way to do it. That’s where having the computer read the text is good. You can listen to the words as the computer reads it. If you wish, you can have someone else read the piece aloud as you listen and make notes. A lot of meanings in a particular word is in the pronunciation and inflections. Hearing each word spoken lets you know when you’ve used the wrong word.

The computer can’t do that for you. It will detect the difference between words like personal and personnel. As well as different meanings, they have different pronunciations. The one can come from a typo of the other. Proofreading will find the incorrect words.

If you have someone else read your work, they will also find the incorrect words and most of the typos. We often miss our own typos, whereas someone who is more or less unfamiliar with the text will read each word. That’s how it works.

Proofreading is the best method of cleaning up the errors in a text. You will find that if you skip this vital step in the writing process, you will regret it. You want the most error free copy of your text to be the one your reader sees. So don’t skimp on this part of the process. You’ll be glad you didn’t.