The Last Thing You Need is a Proofreader

‘Can I do my own proofreading?’

It might surprise you that my answer to this question is yes. But it’s a qualified yes.

Here’s how to do your own proofreading.

If you’re having to work to a tight budget there’s a lot you can do, once you have finished writing, to prepare your text for a final proofread by a professional; things that will improve your skills, that will save you money, that are already available to you free of charge and at your fingertips, that will be of use to you in the future.

First, though, you have to ask yourself the question ‘Is my text ready to be proofread?’ This might seem basic but it is a vital and frequently overlooked stage in the writing process. Have you read your piece through from start to finish? Have you made any changes to what you originally wrote, or is this still your first version? Did you write a draft first and then revise and edit it in subsequent passes? If not, do it now, because it’s not part of a proofreader’s job.

Having done the editing it is now time for you to do the easy proofreading.

The first and most obvious thing is to use the spell-check function. It’s not foolproof by any means, but it is a starting point. However, don’t just accept all the suggestions it makes without reviewing them (for instance it told me that foolproof should be two words, but I know it is one word), and don’t presume that it will find every mistake. A spell-checker just looks for spelling mistakes that make a non-word, but it doesn’t check that you are using the right word in the right place, for example it will not tell you that manger should be manager, because manger is in itself a word. By all means use Grammerly too, but with the same caveats.

Use the Read Aloud function. This will help to find mistakes because you will hear that a word or sentence sounds wrong. If you read it aloud yourself you will read what you think you’ve written

Next, there are a lot of commonly made, easily spotted mistakes that need checking:

• apostrophes – if it’s not replacing a missing letter, or showing possession GET RID OF IT
• i before e except after c – we all know the rhyme but every day I see recieve printed
• -ise/-ize endings – it doesn’t matter which you use, but be consistent
• noun/verb confusions with words like practice/practise and advice/advise; -ice is a noun, -ise is a verb
• every opening bracket has a closing bracket, that all inverted commas are in pairs
• homophones like there, their, they’re, where, wear, were, we’re
• it’s NOT could, should, would, will or might OF, it’s HAVE
• less or fewer – if it’s a singular thing use less (less time, less space); if it’s a plural thing use fewer (fewer people, fewer items)
• amount or number – if it’s a singular thing use amount (the amount of time); if it’s a plural thing use number (the number of minutes). 

You probably know which words are your Achilles heel so don’t skimp on checking them. If you are not 100 per cent sure of a spelling use an online dictionary to check – there are plenty of free ones available such as wordreference.com or lexico.com

Now you’re thinking ‘If I’ve done all this, why do I need a professional proofreader?’

Well, there’s your clue – professional. There will still be a lot of errors that you haven’t spotted, grammar of which you are unsure or unaware, typos, hyphenation issues that you haven’t considered, dangling modifiers or prepositions, subject pronouns that don’t agree, incorrect relative pronouns, issues of layout, formatting, consistency, capitalisation etc that have evaded you, and myriad other details that are each quite small, but collectively add up to a big deal.

So, can you do your own proofreading? Yes, up to a point, but as you can see, a professional proofreader is the last thing you need.