Some people think that you are either good at proofreading or you aren’t. The fact of the matter is that proofreading is a skill that requires practice. Even if you are not great at proofreading now you can use some of these tips to improve your proofreading skills and become an even better freelancer.Here are some ways to become a better proofreader:
- Don’t just focus on misspelled words. You should watch for them because they are not all going to be caught by the spell checker, but you need to watch for other things as well. Watch for repetitious words, readability, and incorrect sentence structure.
- Set the document aside for awhile. When you give the article some time you can return with fresh eyes and you will be more likely to catch your mistakes. Finish writing, take a break, and then come back to it.
- Read what is actually on the page. Sometimes your mind makes you think that you are reading what you want to read but there are actually mistakes. You need to focus on the words that are on the page instead of the words you meant to write.
- Watch for common mistakes. You know what mistakes you make most often. I know one that I have to watch for is serial commas. In Canada it is the accepted way to use commas (milk, bread, and butter) but since most of my clients are American I have to make sure that there are not serial commas in my text (milk, bread and butter).
- Slowly read out loud. If you read your article out loud you can often “hear” your mistakes. You can hear when the sentence just sounds weird. If you repeated a word several time you will hear the repetition.
- Work with a partner. If you can it is a great idea to work with someone. Send your articles back and forth and proofread them for each other. My husband and I are both writers and we often proofread each other’s work. When I’m especially tired and have been writing a lot, having my husband proofread my work before I send it in is very helpful.
- Watch for words that are wrong and right at the same time. Words like to and too are both spelled right but they have different situations where they are correct. See and sea are both spelled correctly but they can be incorrect if they are used in the wrong context.
- Keep your guard up. When you let your guard down and are not paying attention, that is when you will start making mistakes.
- Don’t settle for a quick glance at your article. Read it over several times and make sure you give it the attention it deserves.
Article by Danielle
I'm a social media junkie and professional freelance writer living in small town Manitoba, Canada. I drink a lot of coffee and love my computer (named Garcia after Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds - the ultimate girl geek!), my kids, my husband, and my cats. In 10 years I hope to be that crazy lady travelling across Canada and the States with her three cats and her loving hubby. :) If you're interested in my professional services please visit my professional writer's site to find out more about my services or check out some testimonials from some of my clients.
has written 254 awesome articles for us at The Social Freelance Writer
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
There is more to good proofreading than just checking the spelling and grammar of a piece of work, you also need to look at the overall piece of work, the type of writing it is, the tone of voice, the tenses used, and all of this in the context of the piece.
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May 27, 2011 at 9:27 am
Hi Danielle,
It is really hard to proofread our own articles. I most often ask my boyfriend to proofread my articles and there are times that I would argue with him because what I wrote was right and he thinks that it was wrong.lol The pointers you have written in your post are excellent. It can help me a lot.
One of the surest ways to miss out on writing opportunities is to neglect to proofread your material. You can be the best writer in the planet, but submitting work that’s filled with typos, grammatical errors, and misspellings, is just not acceptable.
I like to proofread my articles with a partner. Two a minds are better than one tired mind.
Really great post nice work i love your work and its really helped me in my research.Thanks for sharing:)
One of my weakest point is writing. It’s really hard for me to write even a simple articles. But when I heard about internet marketing and try to learn it, it became a mandatory to learn writing. So these tips really help me a lot. I am very thankful to the author. Now I’m still learning for it gathering several studying materials just to make me know to write an articles.