Proofreading
The service provided is proofreading. This includes proofreading manuscripts, social media/blog posts/online content, business marketing materials, etc.
Check out a couple Proofreading examples.
Please note that proofreading is not editing (plot, paragraphs, sentence structure, etc. are not changed) and should take place after a book has been developmental edited, line edited, and/or copy edited—either one, two, or all three. You may learn more about these three types of editing here. Don’t worry if you’re not sure, if I believe your document needs more than proofreading, I’ll notify you.
Although I may change my service provided to include more than proofreading in the future, right now I focus exclusively on it.
What is proofreading?
*Although I include examples to show the different aspects of proofreading, there’s no need to panic if it causes confusion. I want to let you know, in greater detail, what I’m focusing on when I proofread. I’m willing to bet, proofreading entails more than you imagined!
- grammatical errors
- subject/verb agreement
- ex. Either dogs or cats
is(are) my favorite.
- ex. Either dogs or cats
- pronouns and their antecedents
- ex. Billy totaled
its(his) car.
- ex. Billy totaled
- comma splices
- ex. I ran fast to the store, (and) I got the groceries.
- run-ons (the above example is technically a run-on sentence called a comma splice)
- ex. I go to that place (,) and I find that they are not there(,) which I then begin to wonder.
- sentence fragments
- ex. (I worked from)
Fromdusk till dawn.
- ex. (I worked from)
- misplaced modifiers (this one can be tricky because it depends on the context of a modifier)
- ex. I
onlyate (only) peas. I did not even touch the corn or carrots and would not eat them.- Since the content shows that the corn or carrots were not eaten, the modifier “only” should modify peas.
- ex. I
- subject/verb agreement
- punctuation
- hyphenations
- ex. He works a
full time(full-time) job.
- ex. He works a
- semicolons
- ex. I went to the store
,(;) he went with me too.- Note: this is an example of a comma splice
- This example could also be fixed by getting rid of the comma, adding a period, and capitalizing the h of “he”.
- ex. I went to the store
- missing or wrong end of sentence punctuation mark
- How fast can dogs run
.(?)
- How fast can dogs run
- hyphenations
- spelling (Don’t get me wrong, spell check can be useful, but it cannot find certain issues.)
- homophones
- This is an issue when the word is spelled right, but it’s the wrong use.
- ex. Why did you go
their(there)? - ex. The butler gave Miss Marple a written confession, hoping to
lesson(lessen) his guiltyconscious(conscience).
- ex. Why did you go
- This is an issue when the word is spelled right, but it’s the wrong use.
- homophones
- formatting
- check if chunks of text are paragraphed properly
- make sure lines are indented consistently
- check page numbers