Comments on: Proofreading from Hard Copy

By: Chen Yee

Chen Yee — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 08:20:50 +0000

If I am going to be an English tutor, I will proofread my students’ essays and reports in green instead of red!!! Green does stand out very well as opposed to black.

I love green, and green is my favorite color!!!!!!!!

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:35:06 +0000

I was a proofreader in a past (read: pre-computer) career. Good to see that the old methods still work!

(Does anyone remember what ETAOIN SHRDLU means?)

By: Precise Edit

Precise Edit — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:53:50 +0000

We do something very much like what you describe. Here is our process.
1. I do an on-screen proof to catch the obvious errors. This creates a tracked changes version.
2. I accept the changes, creating a clean version, and print a hard copy.
3. A second proofreader corrects the hard copy and enters changes in the tracked version file.
4. I accept the changes and do another on-screen proof for quality control. I read this version out loud.
5. If I find more than one remaining error every few pages, I figure that others may be present. I enter new corrections, and we start over at step 2.

I’m always amazed at how many more errors we find in the hard copy than in the on-screen version. Tedious but necessary. And, yes, we use red pens. Our goal = fewer than 1 remaining error per 50 pages.

By: Eric C

Eric C — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:41:40 +0000

This is greta advice. I’m copying it into my personal advice file.

I would, though, only recommend this for long important pieces.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:34:07 +0000

Proofing from a printed copy is a must. For long pieces and even just paragraphs. Being able to mark the corrections and then scratch them off when corrected helps make sure that you get them all.

I also like to read paragraphs out of sequence to see if they make sense on their own.

Edit, edit and then edit again. You want to put your best writing on view.