Tips for Successfully Proofreading your own Writing
If you’re reading this, you’re contemplating proofreading your own manuscript (or other written work). But you’re also reading this because you already know it is very difficult for a person to successfully proofread their own work.
What do I mean by successfully? No one can catch all errors in a piece of writing. In the publishing industry, a manuscript that is 95% error-free is considered excellent. It’s almost impossible to get your own writing to reach this level of correctness. Why is that?
As a writer, you have lived and breathed this work for a very long time. You know what it is meant to say, so as you’re reading through to check for errors, your brain automatically overrides what your eyes are seeing and fills in what it knows is supposed to be on the page.
How do you keep your brain from overriding your eyes? You have to get out of story mode. So, while I don’t believe a person can proofread their own writing to the same level of accuracy as an outside editor can, here are some strategies that will get you as close to that level as possible.
Use these 10 tips to force your brain to slow down and actually notice what is on the page (warts and all).
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If possible, set your manuscript aside for several days so you can return to it with fresh eyes. When you haven’t been living in the story day in and day out, your brain is less able to automatically fill in what is supposed to be there.
Read it out loud. Having to verbalize every word, forces your eyes to actually see each word. This will help you catch more spelling mistakes and homophone mishaps (their, they’re).
Read the story backward sentence by sentence. To keep your brain from entering story mode, start your proofreading at the end. Read the last sentence first. Then read the next to last sentence, and so on. This forces your brain to stay focused on the words that are actually in that sentence instead of trying to focus on the story/content.
Use the text-to-speech function of your word processing software to listen to the text. You will definitely hear errors such as missing or duplicate words. I’ve been told there is also a free Chrome extension called Natural Reader you can use for a more natural sounding voice.
Change the font and color of your text. Your brain is less likely to predict and pre-fill what it knows should be in the text, if you’re looking at a manuscript that isn’t in your usual story format.
Read slowly. If you are trying to proofread quickly, just to get it done, you’re going to miss a lot of your errors. Part of working slowly is committing to only small chunks of text at a time. Your eyes and brain will tire of this process, and you will start to rush if you know there is still a lot to get through during that proofreading session.
While reading slowly, read for one kind of error at a time; capitalization, spelling, punctuation, etc. I know this sounds tedious (which is one reason people hire professional proofreaders like me), but it’s a much more effective way to catch errors.
Touch each punctuation mark. If you’re proofreading on a hard copy print-out, use a pencil. If you’re working on a digital copy, use your cursor to touch each period, comma, apostrophe, quotation mark, etc… as you come to them in the sentence. Question each one; make them prove that they belong there.
Know your weak spots. Are there certain words you frequently mix up (affect, effect or lay, lie)? Do a search for these using the find and replace feature of your word processing software and analyze each instance of the word.
Know who to trust. Do NOT rely on spell checkers and grammar checkers. These tools can be helpful at pointing out the most egregious errors, but they can also flag words as errors when they are not. They also frequently miss errors. The grammar checker you should trust (when writing books and short stories) is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS). If you write a lot, you should consider purchasing the actual style guide. (I prefer the online version as the print book is a behemoth.) If you’re not ready to commit to the entire manual, consider the VERY HANDY CMoS Quick Study. This six-page laminated fold-out (pictured above) is filled with tips on the most common conundrums of the English language. It covers tricky words, grammar problems like mass nouns and appositives, punctuation rules, how to deal with numbers, and even citation guidelines. It is an excellent resource, and at the time of this writing it’s less than $10. Mine is always within reach when I’m in editing mode.
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Happy Writing!
