How to improve your proofreading skills
Or how to catch those pesky grammatical errors
Proof reading has been a huge part of my career forever, and if I have learnt anything, it is very hard to catch grammatical mistakes. I used to work on publishing holiday brochures for the late British Airline Monarch Airlines, and coming into the Content Team afresh, I was picking up proofreading errors that had been published time and time again on the same pages for as long as twenty years. So how do you improve your proofreading skills and minimise the chances of mistakes? Here are my top editing tips.
1. Get someone else to edit your work
You get used to your own writing and your brain knows exactly what your text should say which is one of the biggest challenges to overcome when improving your proofreading skills. Whether it’s a short piece or a longer text that you have edited a million times, your brain compensates meaning that you become blind to your own errors. Amazingly in teams I have worked in there hasn’t always been a culture of cross-checking, so if this is the case ask a colleague or two to look over the piece for you. I guarentee you they will spot mistakes right away.
2. Read your text aloud
From your head comes one voice, from your mouth comes another. Reading a text aloud should be adopted for all of your important texts if you want to improve your proofreading skills and spot grammatical mistakes. You will quickly find that errors stand out when your brain expects one thing and your mouth says something else. It is a great way not only to find errors, but also to understand how the piece reads and where you could make it sound more cohearent or even better.
3. Read your text aloud backwards
Hear me out! I was introduced to this technique about ten years ago and it has been an absolute game-changer, improving my proof-reading skills to the point that I might make one mistake at most, if any at all! The technique of reading your work aloud backwards means that you are forced to assess your written work word by word, and because it is a very unnatural thing to do, any errors or spelling mistakes become obvious right away. It is hard on your brain, so as I write so much I do reserve this one for my most important pieces only. I also recommend when doing this to use something to keep track of where you are on the page, such as a cursor or a pen, so that you can take a breather if your mind feels a little exhausted. But if you can master this method of proofreading, I promise you you will be reaping rewards.
4. Change the format
You probably write in Microsoft Word. If you save your text as a pdf and check it there, you’ll see more errors jump out. If you transfer your text to an email, you’ll see other errors. Sometimes in my work I might work on the same text in Word and on the website and on a poster - in all three I will find different proofreading errors and I can correct the text accordingly. The same principle of the brain seeing something different applies.
5. Come back to it later
Editing is an intense process, so one way to improve your proofreading skills is to put your work to one side and edit it later. If you’re at work, close the document, do something else and return to it tomorrow. If it’s a personal piece, save it on your computer or pop it in a drawer. There’s no rule as to how long you should leave your work - you can disappear for dinner and see the text with fresh eyes, or you can look at it a week or a month later and still see something new.
Do you have any tried and tested techniques that have improved your proofreading skills? Share in the comments below.