A Roundup of Proofreading Tips

Sorry about the lack of recent posts here. A back injury kept me away from the computer for too long, but it had one unexpected, and welcome, outcome: lots of time to think about posts to write, including this one on proofreading.

To my writer’s mind, proofreading ranks right up there in importance with crafting compelling leads or marketing savvy, whether for a 150-word filler or a major article or book. My philosophy about proofreading is this: get all the help you can, from a responsible person or other reliable source, and try to make your work as nearly perfect as possible.

Over the years I’ve picked up some especially helpful tips from Internet sources like LR Communications Systems, Inc.; DailyWritingTips.com; Writing Consistently across Media; the Writer’s Handbook of the University of Wisconsin-Madison UW-Madison; About.Com Desktop Publishing; the University Writing Center at the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UWC); and The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

Here are some of those tips:

1. Put it on paper and read it out loud. People read differently on screen and on paper, so print out a copy of your writing. If you read aloud, your ear might catch errors that your eye may have missed. (dailywritingtips.com)

2. Read through the entire document once to get an overall feel for content before you proofread for errors. (desktoppub.about.com)

3. Place a ruler (or a piece of paper) under each line as you read it. This will give your eyes a manageable amount of text to read. (UWC)

4. Don’t try to find every mistake in one pass. Read through the material several times, looking for different problems each time such, such as:

Typos and misspellings
Easily confused words (“to” for “too,” “your” for “you’re,” e.g.)
Ambiguity
Inconsistencies
Formatting problems
Factual errors
Missing words (Writing Consistently Across Media)

5. Use the search function of the computer to find mistakes you’re likely to make. Search for “its” and “it’s,” for “-ing” if dangling modifiers are problem for us; for opening parentheses or quote marks if you tend to leave out the closing ones. (UW -Madison)

6. Proof backwards. Begin at the end and work back through the paper, paragraph by paragraph, or even line by line. This will force you to look at the surface elements rather than the meaning of the paper. (UWC)

7. Proofread once aloud. This will slow you down and you will hear the difference between what you meant to write and what you actually wrote. (UWC)

8. Use the spell-checker on your computer, but use it carefully, and also do your own spell-checking. Computer spell-checkers often make errors — they might suggest a word that isn’t what you want at all, and they don’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re, for example. (UWC)

9. Remember that the apostrophe is never used to form plurals. (dailywritingtips.com)

10. Call phone numbers to verify them. If addition, subtraction, or other math operations appear in text, double check the figures. (desktoppub.about.com)

11. Check the numbers. Stating the value of an acquisition was $10,000 instead of $100,000 is definitely not the same thing. What about the population of China, is it 1,2 million or 1,2 billion? Make sure your numbers are correct. (dailywritingtips.com)

12. Closely review page numbers and other footer/header material for accuracy and correct order. (LR Communication Systems)

13. Read down columns in a table, even if you’re supposed to read across the table to use the information. Columns may be easier to deal with than rows. (LR Communication Systems)

15. Double check names. Check spelling of all names and company names. (desktoppub.about.com)

16. And finally this from (UWC) : Remember that it isn’t just about errors.

You want to polish your sentences at this point, making them smooth, interesting and clear. Watch for long sentences, since they may be less clear than shorter, more direct sentences. Pay attention to the rhythm of your writing; try to use sentences of varying length and patterns. Look for unnecessary phrases, repetition, and awkward spots.

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Cutting The Flab from Your Writing

When I ran across a quote by Hilaire Belloc last night, it set me to thinking about what I write much of the time. Here’s the quote:

Writing itself is a bad enough trade, rightly held up to ridicule and contempt by the greater part of mankind, and especially by those who do real work, plowing, riding, sailing — or even walking about. It is a sound instinct in men to feel this distrust and contempt for writing; and as for writing about writing, why it is writing squared; it is writing to the second power, in which the original evil is concentrated… There is even, I am told, a third degree of horror. Writing about what other people have written about writing: “Lives of the Critics,” “Good English,” “Essays on Sainte Beuve” — things of that sort. Good Lord deliver us.”

While I hesitate to disagree with a writer of the stature of Hilaire Belloc (he has been described as “the man who wrote a library,” producing voluminous amounts poetry, books, essays, letters, pamphlets–filling over 150 volumes), nevertheless I do take an opposing view. I enjoy writing about what other people have written about writing, even if puts me into the third degree of horror category. I enjoy writing about what has been written before, even it’s not something newly written.

Here’s an example from The Basics of Writing for Magazines (published in November 1998 — proving that I never throw away good writing advice). In that publication, Jack Hart, a managing editor of the Oregonian and a nationally known writing coach, presented “25 Ways to Supercharge Your Manuscript.” Hart offered this advice about cutting the flab from your writing:

Paula LaRocque, writing coach at The Dallas Morning News, says anything that doesn’t add to a piece of writing takes away. Unnecessary words deflate impact by padding the active, precise vocabulary that carries core meaning.

Some flab invariably creeps into first drafts. So rewriting should focus on cutting anything superfluous. The simplest technique is still the best. Work your way through the draft, eliminating each word mentally. If you can remove a word in your imagination without doing great harm, remove it from the draft.”

Also consider the words of the late Paul Friggens, a former roving editor of Reader’s Digest who conducted seminars and workshops on writing at colleges around the country. Here he was writing about revisions and rewrites in The Complete Guide to Writing Non-Fiction:

Some, in fact, most serious writers go over their work with great care. They weigh every paragraph, every sentence, often every phrase with a view to improving their first, second, and subsequent drafts. Many would be surprised to learn that professionals revise and rewrite over and over to achieve the result they’re after. It’s easy when you’re just starting out to be so smitten with your precious prose that you’re blind to its abuse or misuse. And you’re so happy to have completed an article that little or no thought is given to such mundane matters as length and pace or even readability.”

Paying attention to advice like that may help me make my manuscripts more acceptable to editors. And if writing about it helps me, and other freelancers, profit from the advice and become more successful, it bothers me not a whit to be included in the third degree of horror category. It’s one reason this blog exists.

© 2008 by Laverne Daley

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Writing with Precision: Watch Out for These Twelve Words

“If writing must be a precise form of communication, it should be treated like a precision instrument. It should be sharpened, and it should not be used carelessly.” Theodore M. Bernstein

In pursuit of precision, we offer here are a dozen word usages that sometimes trip us up. We often use them without realizing their precise meaning.

Demolish, destroy. You can’t partially destroy or demolish something. Demolish and destroy do away with completely. So there is no need to say something is totally destroyed.

Fliers, flyers. People who fly airplanes are fliers. Handbills are flyers.

Annual. It’s never the first annual anything. If something is happening for the first time, it can’t be annual yet. You can say you expect it to become an annual event. Use annual only for second and succeeding times.

Funeral service. The word service is redundant. A funeral is a service. (I know I was taught this in newswriting classes but I still have trouble remembering it, in writing and in speaking).

Imply, infer. A speaker implies. A hearer infers.

Over, more than. Over refers to spatial relationships (the plane flew over the city). Use more than with figures. More than 50,000 fans attended the game.

Reluctant, reticent. If we don’t want to do something, we’re reluctant to do it. If we don’t want to speak about it, we’re reticent to talk about it.

Temperatures. Temperatures may get higher or lower but they don’t get warmer or cooler. Temperatures may rise, but they don’t warm up. The day becomes warmer or the air becomes warmer as the temperature rises.

And while talking about temperatures, if you think you’re coming down with a cold and you feel warm, don’t say you’re running a temperature. You are not. You may be running a fever. Our bodies always have a temperature, usually around 98.6 degrees. If it’s above that number, you probably have a fever.

Unique. Unique means something is the only one of its kind. It can’t be very unique or more unique or most unique (all of which imply comparison with other objects). It’s either unique (one of a kind) or it’s not.

Drown. Don’t say someone was drowned unless another person held the victim’s head under water to accomplish the deed. Otherwise, just say someone drowned.

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© 2008 by Laverne Daley

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