The trouble with proofreading your own work is that you see what you expect to see, so you read what you think you wrote, and not necessarily what you did write. If you first and last letters of a word are in the correct order, you may not see typing errors in the middle of the word.

Firstly, use a good spell and grammar check. This will never pick up all of the errors, especially the words that sound the same but have different spellings for different meanings, such as there, their, and they’re. However, the spell check is a good place to start.

Secondly, read the work looking for the common errors you often make. If you are not sure about the meaning of particular words, use a dictionary and a thesaurus. If you commonly make mistakes in comma placement, print out the page and highlight every single comma. Re-read the comma rules one by one and check each highlighted comma on your printed document. If you can’t find a rule that explains why the comma is there, take it out. Although you can miss commas, overuse of commas is the more typical mistake to make.

Read your work aloud. This helps you to catch the awkward or repetitive phrases, as you tend to stumble over these passages as you read aloud.

Check your work for consistency. If you start spelling Summer with a capital, make sure you consistently spell it with a capital throughout the document. Don’t say 2 apples in one paragraph and three oranges in the next.

Finally, put your work aside for at least a couple of hours and reread it again before you send it off to the publisher. You must look at the work as if someone else has written it, not you to be a good proofreader. Assume you have made mistakes and look for them.

I hope this blog on proofreading articles helps. On a private note, I’m sorry I have been very quiet on this website lately – I’ve been sick and just been keeping up with the paying work. I’m getting better now, so hopefully, I’ll be more active on the forum again soon. Take care,

Hayley Hunkin

www.expandingcreationswriters.com

 However, when you want to publish your writing, you do need to care about presenting a clean copy with no errors for the publisher to read. You need to edit your own work before you give it to a publisher. Editing is a completely different skill to writing, so it is not always easy to edit your own work. In fact, it is often easier to edit someone else’s work, because you are less familiar with it. The author often knows what is intended by a particular sentence, but the reader becomes confused. The main trick to editing your own work is to look at it as if you are reading someone else’s work for the first time.

 Ask yourself questions, such as:

• Does that sentence make sense?
• Have I left out important information that would help the reader make sense of my writing?
• Does my writing flow from paragraph to paragraph in a smooth manner, or do I repeat myself?
• What questions do I have after reading this?
• Am I assuming the reader has the same knowledge I do?

If you write at a computer, it is a good idea to print out your article and proofread from the printed copy. It makes it easier to spot the simple errors, such as the typographical errors, and you can circle the error quickly and keep reading. Edit the entire piece and then go back to the computer to make all the changes, so that you don’t forget anything.

Read your writing aloud. This helps you to spot the instances of awkward wording or phrasing, because you will naturally stumble over the words when you read them aloud. If it doesn’t sound natural when you read, you need to do some editing.

I’ve often heard authors say that the first draft is nothing like the published version, and that’s probably a good thing! Editing and proofreading is a continual process that adds the technical side of writing to our work. We all need to polish our writing until it shines and reaches to the heart of the reader.

 Hayley

For free articles on freelance writing, check out http://www.expandingcreations.com