Are you missing out on these surprisingly effective proofreading tricks?

However eagle-eyed you may be, it’s easy to stare yourself blind when proofing vast swathes of text. The key, of course, is to take a break so you can approach the task anew, but with a deadline looming that may not be an option. So when you can no longer see the wood for the trees, try some of these more unusual methods to help you view your copy with fresh eyes.

Change the background and text colour: We used this technique at a news organisation I worked at and it really helps. Like several of the tips presented here, this tricks the brain into thinking it's seeing a new document. Switching, for instance, to white text on a blue background allows you to see your copy in a new light (do this in the latest version of Microsoft Word by selecting Design>Page Colour).

Listen to your text: Use the Read Aloud function in Word or an online service like www.naturalreaders.com/online/ to read your content out. Sit back and listen carefully; you’ll be amazed at how many improvements you can find by using your ears instead of your eyes. This approach is great not only for spotting errors but also for crafting high-profile copy for press releases and CEO statements.

Read your copy backwards: Not word for word backwards, of course, but skim-reading from bottom to top, scrolling upwards. I think of this as like looking for fleas on a dog, combing against the direction of the fur, as it were, to find anything wrong that stands out. Reading backwards stops the eye from skipping ahead in the natural direction and missing any slip-ups.

Check the first thing last: Once you’ve completed your proof, always go back to the start and check the title and first paragraph of your article one last time; after all, first impressions count. And don’t forget to confirm that the title is still correct and relevant after any edits to the main text; perhaps a change to the emphasis of the article requires a tweak to the headline?

Read a hard copy or the next-best thing: The previously standard practice of proofing print-outs now feels rather outdated (not to mention environmentally unsustainable). But it’s the gold standard for proofreading; you simply spot more errors on paper than on screen. I still check a paper copy if the content is particularly high profile. If you own a Kindle, another option is to email documents to the device and proof them on that (I discovered this after owning a Kindle for nine years!). Alternatively, simply convert your document to PDF format to get that sense of reading the text for the first time.

Oliver Dirs is the author of Good Words Fast, a new kind of thesaurus for writers, editors and translators. He is also a copyeditor and translator at Hilltop Language Ltd in the UK.