A Few Proofreading Hints

As ebooks become more popular, there's a bad reputation they have for containing typos, grammar mistakes, and mispellings. Oops, better make that misspellings. Seriously though, as a professional writer, nothing makes you cringe more than having a reader who plunked down their good money for your book to point out the mistakes a thorough proofreading should've caught. So, I thought about some ways to help improve proofreading operations.

1. I like to change up the type font, type color, and sometimes type size (made larger) if I'm proofreading the manuscript on my laptop screen.

2. I always print out the manuscript to comb through it. This is an expensive (printer ink toner) but necessary step.

3. I've seen hints like adjusting the screen's resolution and changing from justified to unjustified text. Both sound interesting but I've never tried either technique.

4. Read the manuscript backwards or read it out loud. I've used both techniques. The step(s) take longer. My results can be fair to good.

5. Use a proofreading round devoted to just checking the punctuation the grammar, etc.

6. Create an individualized checklist of what things to look out for in your proofreading. I tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

7. Sometimes I'll use google to see how a phrase or even word is used in reputable places like the NY Times. Or I'll see how often it appears in the google search hits I bring up.

8. Never trust spellcheck. Never trust grammar check. I make the final decision on whatever is flagged.

9. Sometimes I like to flip through the manuscript's pages and let my eyes run spot checks on the text. Mistakes can jump out at me such as a missing article.