10 Tips for Failsafe Proofreading

As a professional writer, editor and communications guy, I've done a hell of a lot of proofreading over the years. I've proofread just about every kind of document there is, from gigantic government policy papers to tiny event invitations and everything in between. I proofread my wife's writings, my current public relations class assignments, these blog posts and even my Facebook and Twitter posts before I press 'Send'.

This is not to say that I'm necessarily the world's most brilliant proofreader. Actually I'm not. I've had bad days or even weeks when I've let all kinds of egregious mistakes slip the net, sometimes in other people's work but more often in my own. There have been times when I've had to go back and edit my own blog posts after finding spelling mistakes and I've even deleted and reposted Facebook posts after that 'egad' moment where you catch a glaring typo a split second too late. I've even deleted misspelled Tweets ('Twuckups' as they're known), although you can never truly 'delete' a Tweet. Once it's out there, it's out there for good.

Nor do I particularly enjoy proofreading. Actually, it's one of my least favourite activities, down there with scraping frost off the car windows, cleaning the fridge and pulling the drawstring out from inside my swimsuit after a particularly rough journey through the washing machine. No, it's a pretty annoying job but I resign myself to it because the alternative is shoddy writing full of typos, syntax errors and dropped prepositions. It's not fun but it is worth it. Missed typos are like that big honking zit in the middle of your forehead that you know everyone is staring at but you can't do anything about.

Anybody who does a lot of proofreading is bound to have their own list of proofing tips. Here are my top ten, for what they're worth.

1)      Print it out first.

Trust me on this one - you'll catch more mistakes on paper than you will on the screen. Firstly, a printed copy is easier on the eyes - not to mention a faster read. And secondly, that shift in perspective from the screen to the page helps jog your mind and helps you focus on the actual words on the page. By all means do a first sweep on your computer with the changes tracked to catch the big stuff, but when it comes to spotting missing commas, dropped articles and spelling mistakes that your spellchecker won't find, you'll want it on paper.

2)      Proofread in a different room from where you usually work.

You may remember the famous scene in the movie Dead Poets Society when Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) commands his students to stand atop their desks in order to see the world around them from a different perspective. The same idea applies to proofreading. When I'm at work I will print the document and take it to a vacant office or the cafeteria (any room without a computer screen will do), which helps give me fresh perspective on my own work. If I'm editing freelance stuff at home, I'll go to a different room in the house - usually the kitchen table.

3)      Use a fine-tipped pen with a comfortable grip.

Nothing sets you off to a bad start at proofreading than having your first red mark soak through the page and slowly saturate the paper like an oil spill. A fine-tipped pen will help you avoid this problem, and if you're doing a lot of proofing you're going to want to invest in an ergonomic, easy-on-the-hand pen for the job.

4)      Read every single word to yourself.

Eventually the Devil will whisper into your ear that nothing is wrong, that there's no reason not to skip a word or two here and there. Don't do it. 

5)      Read it backwards, sentence by sentence.

The result of this will be that none of what you've written will make sense. That's kind of the point. Reading your work backwards sentence by sentence will help divorce the words from their intended meaning, leaving you with nothing but words and grammatical underpinnings, which is exactly what you're supposed to be focusing on. When I was working as a full-time English language copy editor in Tokyo, there would be days when I would finish my work day with absolutely no recollection of anything I had read that day because I was reading solely for grammar and not for content.

6)      If you listen to music, make it instrumental and non-intrusive.

Some people advise against listening to music at all while proofreading. Personally I find it helps relieve the tedium, but only if we're talking about non-intrusive ambient music. For proofreading listening, I personally like Brian Eno's Music for Airports, Ryuichi Sakamoto's solo piano music, electronic ear candy à la Boards of Canada and Autechre and anything by Bach, Erik Satie or Philip Glass. Music with lyrics is going to be distracting and suffice it to say, anything by a band with a misspelled name (i.e. Megadeth, Korn, Mötley Crüe) is a recipe for disaster.

7)      Give yourself little rewards.

If you're at work, promise yourself a coffee break, 10 minutes on Facebook or a round of Angry Birds after you're done. If you're at home, promise yourself a beer after you've finished. If you're looking at an entire afternoon proofreading heavy legal or financial documents, trust me - you'll need a drink afterwards!

(Note: Do not - I repeat - do NOT try to proofread while under the influence of alcohol! By all means drink while you write, as many of history's greatest wordsmiths have been fond of doing, but trying to proofread under any condition other than stone-cold sobriety is a complete waste of time.)

8)      Get all your proofing done before you input your changes.

A whole lot of back and forth will not only slow you down but it will also increase the likelihood of fresh errors. Get it all done on the page before you take it back to the computer. Treat your proofreading assignment like a crime scene - cordon it off and then comb the entire scene for evidence before you take it back to your crime lab for study.

9)      For the love of God, save your work!

This should go without saying, but I've been there and (not) done that.

10)   Write a blog post purporting to teach people how to do better proofreading.

Because you're really going to look like a total doofus if you purport to be an expert on proofreading and then commit conspicuous word bloopers of your own. As reader of this post, you're doubtless going to be looking extra hard for errors here. Good luck with that.

For further resources on proofreading, editing and wordsmithing in general, I highly recommend the site Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Typos and Other Pubic Embarrassments

10 proofreading shortcuts for the lazy copy editor

'Public' relations were never this man's forte.

During my two years as in-house copy editor and proofreader for the Japan Financial Services Agency, I had a vast swath of documents grace my desk. Most of them were deathly boring and totally forgettable, but every now and again I would get something memorable. One such occasion was when I was asked to proofread a series of thank-you letters from the JFSA addressed to the now dead and deposed Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, his then minister of finance and several other members of his government. (I can’t remember exactly what these were for but I think one or another Japanese bank was opening a branch in Tripoli.)

What I do remember very clearly was that one of the letters had an embarrassing misspelling of the word ‘public’. (This wasn’t in the letter to the Colonel himself but to one of his apparatchiks.) For an instant I was seriously tempted to let it pass, thinking that the letter might cause an incident within the Libyan government that might contribute to destabilizing the regime – this was back in 2007, well before the Arab Spring. But in the end I did my job and corrected the mistake. After all, I didn’t really want some innocent government translator with the Libyan government to get shot over something like this.

This wasn’t the first time I had seen ‘pubic’ in a document instead of ‘public’. In fact, in my many years of editing and proofreading I’ve made a habit of doing a word search for ‘pubic’, especially when I’m faced with a large document wherein things like this can easily get lost or overlooked. Spellcheckers have made us all lazier and egregious typos like this that once wouldn’t have stood a chance now escape capture on a regular basis. I was once editing a document for the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Association which made at least one reference to ‘unclear power’. Granted, in light of the Fukushima disaster, ‘unclear’ is a pretty apt description for this particular organization’s PR modus operandi, but as a professional proofer you can’t let that sort of thing pass.

Most of the typos that slip the net are less amusing than these, but no less embarrassing for a client – and the proofreader assigned to catch them. The best way to catch the common ones is through a word search. Here are ten words I often, if not always, search for in a large document before I even start the laborious process of proofreading.

1) Pubic / Public – Seriously, look for it. I’ve seen it more than twice and there’s no more embarrassing a typo in the English language.

2) Than / That – This is, of course, a more common word than ‘pubic’ and will take you more time, but it’s a very common mistake and one that’s easy to glance over. Trust me – I’ve made this mistake before.

3) Form / From – This is a typo in the same category as #2. The word ‘form’ is invariably going to be less common than ‘from’, so it makes sense to look up the former before the latter.

4) World / Word – This is a surprisingly common one. I think it’s because the letter ‘L’ is located right underneath the letter ‘O’ on the keyboard. I’ve seen this mistake go both ways, so both words are worth looking up.

5) An / And / Nad – This one will usually get underlined by your grammar checker, so it’s perhaps not as much of a priority, and it’s going to take you quite a while to sift through all the ‘an’s’ in a long document. Still, I’ve seen it slip the net more than once, so it might be worth your while. And while last time I checked ‘nad’ is not an officially accepted English word (except in the Beavis & Butthead universe), I have seen it in print before, in places where ‘and’ was obviously the intended word.

6) Allot / A lot – Most of us had this one drilled into us by high school English teachers enough that we no longer write 'alot' - and in any case your spellchecker will catch this one. Nevertheless, ‘allot’ with two L’s is a correct English word, and if you’re typing at breakneck speed trying to get through an assignment, it’s easy enough to type that instead of ‘a lot’.

7) Wed / We – Especially when you're tying fast and writing something like 'We did it' you're liable to end up typing 'Wed it it' or something like that. Worth looking for.

8) Tit / It – Yes, this is a fun one that’s definitely up there with ‘pubic’ in the embarrassment category. I’ve been doing word searches for this one ever since a university professor of mine told me a horror story involving this particular word and the introductory chapter of his doctoral thesis.

9) Massage / Message – Not quite as suggestive as ‘tit’ or ‘pubic’ but just as potentially embarrassing – and surprisingly common.

10) Defence / Licence / Centre / Honour etc. – If you’re from the US or any other jurisdiction that opts for American spellings in English, you can disregard this once. But if you’re from Canada or elsewhere in the Commonwealth and using Microsoft Word (which always seems to revert to American English), you’re going to want to look for these, as Word has a nasty habit of switching them automatically.

BONUS: Typo / Type – Trust me, you don't want to misspell the word 'typo'. That's just plane plain embarrassing.

For a look at the far-reaching economic impact of spelling mistakes, read this BBC article.