What are the top samples to include in your proofreading portfolio?

When you are working for the press or on publishing material, you need to be able to be familiar and adhere to different house styles. A house style is not genre specific, rather specific to the publisher, and goes beyond formats: it includes grammar and punctuation usage, spelling, typography conventions, how to insert citations and references following different recognized standards (i.e., PA, MLA, Chicago, etc), how to use abbreviations and acronyms, tone and voice, capitalization... House style guidelines are important for maintaining brand consistency, professionalism, and readability across all publications from a specific publisher. They help create a unified and recognizable identity for the publisher's content.

One of the key steps to a well-done job in proofreading is to know and understand the message being passed. As editors, there is this urgency to quickly change something just for it to be said that we did a thing but sometimes you just need to take in the message and give expert and unbiased corrections where necessary. You must ask the writer questions and know who are those the piece is written to

Yes, it is true that we need to various samples to show our range. However, picking the right sample is more crucial. The reason is that, more often than not, potential projects tend to be specific in terms of format, genre, or client. Knowing which samples to offer to whom is the step forward.

I find that my clients come to me because of my background in Museums and Heritage. They don't just want a proof reader; they want a person sensitive to the topics and language of the sector. As such, I don't have a wide variety of genres and formats to choose from, rather a specific skills set to meet the needs of a specific client set.

Selecting a diverse array of proofreading samples across various genres and formats is essential to exhibit your adaptability and proficiency. Each genre, such as fiction, non-fiction, academic, business, web, and social media, demands specific stylistic elements, tones, and conventions that should be reflected in your samples. Demonstrating your mastery of punctuation, and grammar, and adherence to genre-specific styles while maintaining consistency throughout is crucial. Strive to showcase your ability to enhance different writing types by choosing well-crafted samples that highlight your attention to detail and grasp of various linguistic landscapes.

Difficulty is a bit harder to gauge. I believe it is better to explore samples with different types of error. The ability to notice issues from a broad range of spectrum, from incorrect terminology to awkward flow, from a country-specific convention to an ever-elusive typo (affect vs. effect, for instance), will help elaborate your proofreading skill.

In the realm of proofreading, the selection of samples across various difficulty levels is crucial. It highlights adaptability and proficiency, showcasing the ability to address texts with diverse complexities, clarity, and accuracy. By presenting both heavily flawed and mildly problematic samples, one demonstrates meticulous attention to detail and problem-solving skills. This approach emphasizes the capacity to cater to different client needs and adapt to varying expectations, underlining versatility in language refinement.

Difficulty is subjective. It depends on how familiar you are with a subject or a style (for example, is a pharmaceutical text more "difficult" than an ambiguous sentence in a romance?)... I believe a better way of describing "difficulty" could be "clarity". A text need to be clear and unambiguous to the reader, whatever the reader's expertise is.

It is difficult to judge difficulty (sic). What may be difficult for one person might be considered easy for another. It is more a case of appropriateness. I have university professors who write papers in a highly academic style requiring point perfect punctuation and formatting. These clients require a high standard of proof reading and, in some cases, rewriting. This is my standard workflow and one that comes easy to me, but perhaps not to another. So I believe 'appropriateness' would be a better evaluation marker than 'difficulty'.

I’m not a technical editor and don’t sell myself as one. But sometimes specific types of proofing can make you a technical editor or proofreader. For instance, only a very small percentage of proofreaders can handle a movie billing or one-sheet. I’ve tested dozens of veteran proofreaders and nearly all have failed to find all of the errors. And unless you have automotive experience, you have no business trying to proofread a car brochure. Someone, eventually, will call you out as an imposter. Anything financial requires a financial background. But most proofreaders don’t, so be prepared to prove your financial proofreading skills.

Before-after samples with track changes and any explanation will help. Any CAT tools that allow viewing segment/string history are amazing in my perspective.

This is crucial to me. A few well-explained changes do say a lot about your proofreading process and the knowledge backing it up.

This will always be a work in progress for me. It takes a while to find the perfect sample of work where you didn’t necessarily rewrite the work, if you’re an editor, but made the copy sing with a little massaging. In cases of proofreading, I have a few examples where if I didn’t catch the error, most likely no one else would have been able to. An amazing sample of before-after would also show how you discovered that copy somehow got deleted or omitted. This puts proofreaders in the elite: those who can proofread what is not on the page.

To my mind, this is a must in order to render instructive proofreading. It is amazing how much insight is shared from detailing how the text evolved not only in style but more importantly in substance and flow.

Presenting before and after versions of your proofreading samples is a powerful strategy to showcase your expertise. This approach visually demonstrates the value you bring by transforming original text into polished content. It allows you to transparently display your changes while explaining the rationale behind each correction and how it aligns with the text's purpose and audience. Whether using track changes features in word processors, annotated screenshots for online content, or PDF comparisons, this technique offers a tangible representation of your meticulous attention to detail and your ability to enhance written material.

Enhancing your portfolio with authentic testimonials and client feedback can greatly bolster your credibility and build trust with potential clients. These endorsements serve as tangible evidence of your expertise, demonstrating the positive impact of your proofreading services. By strategically placing testimonials alongside relevant samples, you showcase your ability to meet client needs, transform content, and produce high-quality results. Requesting permission from satisfied clients to share their testimonials, in formats ranging from quotes to logos, can effectively illustrate your track record of excellence and establish a strong foundation of trust.

Testimonials are always essential. They qualify your work and give authenticity to any portfolio or presentation. Just make sure the client consents to sharing their feedback.

Testimonials and feedback serve as social proof of your skills and reliability. They offer third-party endorsements that support your claims of proficiency and professionalism. Feedback from previous clients showcases how your proofreading skills were applied in real-world scenarios. This demonstrates your practical experience and ability to deliver results. In a competitive market, testimonials can differentiate you from other proofreaders who may not have client endorsements. They highlight your track record of client satisfaction. Testimonials can serve as conversation starters with potential clients. They can inquire about specific projects mentioned in the testimonials, leading to deeper discussions about your capabilities.

The value of social proof cannot be overstated; sharing, in former clients’ words, the impact your editing had on the final product is huge! Don’t be afraid to ask them for a testimonial once the final product has been delivered - writing up a case study with ROI data, featuring recommendations on your LinkedIn profile, and/or highlighting companies you’ve worked with on your website are all key to converting new clients.

Editing has many levels, from a broad developmental edit to the small, often-overlooked editing done in a final proofread. Depending on the role, you may need to show that you can do a wide variety of editing levels, or you may need a portfolio that showcases your particular editing level. Part of your niche will be honing in on what kind and level of editing you want to do and are good at. Tailor your portfolio to your career goals and the kinds of jobs you want to do.

Strategically selected samples can highlight your niche and goals effectively. Your niche represents your specialized focus, while your goals signify the achievements you're striving for in the proofreading field. The process of curating samples goes beyond showcasing your linguistic precision – it involves aligning these samples with your niche and goals to resonate with your target clients. For instance, if your aim is to proofread for the wellness industry, your samples should reflect your expertise in medical terminology, nutrition, and wellness literature. By presenting samples that resonate with your niche, you not only demonstrate your language proficiency but also establish trust and relevance with potential clients in that domain.

This advice conflicts with the advice above concerning a variety of formats and genres. If you wish to specialize in a particular area of expertise, for example legal, you will not want to overload your portfolio with examples of fiction or website blurb. If you have a specific background in a specialist field, it would be advisable to play to your strengths in that sector. A great legal proof reader needs a strong knowledge of legal terminology which another may not have, just as a great arts proof reader should have a background in that field. I would not call this 'niche' but rather showcasing your strengths.

In this case formatting your portfolio into clearly divided sections can allow you to showcase multiple samples from multiple niches within the same portfolio. Adding an easy way to navigate your portfolio, whether in the form of a table of contents or a clear and simple user interface if your portfolio is in the form of a website allows your various clients to quickly find samples of your work within their specific niche, even when your portfolio contains samples from multiple niches. Organization and categorization are key.

When editing, it is important to understand whether there is an actual issue that warrants an edit or we simply want to change it. We should not mistake a different in style as a punishable error. Linguists all have their own "language upbringing", something that influences how they deliver a message. Yes, text can always be improved, but we also need to have some restraint - to not "destroy" someone else's work just because it doesn't read the way we want it to.

Whenever I'm asked to do proofreading of non-fiction, the first thing I ask is: Do you really want me to proofread or do you want me to edit? They are both phases of the publication process. Proofreading, for me, is at the end of the process and should not entail major corrections. It is not editing, but checking to see that big errors don't slip through.

The processes this article describes involve editing, not proofreading. Proofreading is done after editing is complete and often after MSS have been designed and typeset. It might include fact-checking (is that really how you spell Schiphol Airport, did the moon landing take place in 1968 or 1969, etc), the focus is on picking up typos and fixing layout problems such as widows and orphans, bad page breaks, etc.

One thing I struggle with is using real-life text samples, as I see our role as being a facilitator for the authors' true vision and helping them shine through their words. As such, it seems underhand to me to expose, for the purpose of a sample, "bad writing" that we have improved. When possible, I prefer to use nonidentifiable sources or create something specifically for the purpose of showcasing the proofreader's skill.

It's important to not make substitutions for words or phrasing you simply prefer - editors should try to keep the style of the writer intact as much as possible, so their voice remains theirs, not yours.