Service Provided – Proofreading

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!

  1. grammatical errors
    • subject/verb agreement
      • ex. Either dogs or cats is (are) my favorite.
    • pronouns and their antecedents
      • ex. Billy totaled its (his) car.
    • 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) From dusk till dawn.
    • misplaced modifiers (this one can be tricky because it depends on the context of a modifier)
      • ex. I only ate (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.
  2. punctuation
    • hyphenations
      • ex. He works a full time (full-time) job.
    • 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”.
    • missing or wrong end of sentence punctuation mark
      • How fast can dogs run. (?)
  3. 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 guilty conscious (conscience).
  4. formatting
    • check if chunks of text are paragraphed properly
    • make sure lines are indented consistently
    • check page numbers
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