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Proofreading Tips for Technical Writers
Who is the proofreader?
The proofreader combs through the work looking for any inappropriateness. These include punctuation, spelling, spaces, alignment, type font and style, and other minutiae. This can involve comparing the final copy with the final trail print.
Technical writers and Self-proofreading
Proofreading is one of the important skill technical writers must possess to excel in their profession. A good writer with self-proofreading ability are able to churn out accurate, clear, concise, flawless and logically structured document, it’s imperative that you review each word to check for typos, mistakes, context, and tone. Those little details really do matter!
I asked my friends on LinkedIn Information Developers group and I got some great tips thanks to Altaf Ahmed, San Xu, Carlos and Kranthi Kumar Kandagatla for their insight.
To find out errors, you must know the type of errors that you do commonly. In this post, my main focus is on some common mistakes and methods to reduce them by self-proofing.
Please also keep in the mind there is a difference between editing and proofreading. It is said that we should not do together, but I believe if you have the ability to do it together please go ahead.
- Spelling mistakes
- Incorrect data
- Incorrect or inconsistent capitalization
- Incorrect Numbering and Heading
- Incorrectly spelled names
- Non-agreement of subject and verb
- Use of passive voice
- Incorrect punctuation
- Incorrect Referencing of illustrations
- Incorrect header and footer
- Reversed numbers like 459 to 495
- Sound similar but have different meanings for words (e.g., except/accept, palette/palate, intense/intensive).
- Wrong use of apostrophes
- Check Cross-references
- Style Guide compliance mistakes. (Mistakes in Fonts, Images, Tables etc)
- Incorrect Index
Now you have a checklist available, but how to find your own writing errors which often occurs just when stress levels are highest and time shortest, writers minds resist identifying them as errors. Under these conditions, you will see only what they want to see because we are often blind to our own mistakes?
Few popular and easy steps which work wonder to many will surely work for you as well.
Accommodate additions to the dictionary of unusual words you commonly use(horrible instead of honorable, be long instead of belong )
(their instead of they’re, its instead of it’s )
We can do a complete scan of the document for only spell checking, and then repeat the quick scan each time for checking graphics, links, grammar check etc. Though this looks to be a tedious and time-consuming process, however, can provide thorough results with correction of even minute undetected errors.
Kranthi Kumar Kandagatla • I agree to San. A fresh mind works efficiently for proofreading. I always take a day off after I complete a project. Come next day for proofreading. I prefer soft copy.
Carlos Mills, • I also keep a list of commonly misspelt words to run a quick search/replace to save editing time. As we all agree, the writer should take some time off from the document first pass to avoid blind words or to avoid seeing what they are thinking and not what was written.
Do you have some more tips to share? Kindly leave a comment.To know the difference between editing and proofreading.
Your study is excellent and so is the information in this article.
I am also glad to see my name :).
Wonderful article on proofreading. I liked the way it was collated. Thank you for sharing much needed insights.
Very well thought article. It will surely come in handy, the check list and can come inside a documentation check-list which will have checks for other factors that go into creating and ensuring creation of an accurate, error-free document. Thanks for sharing@
One more thing we must include in our checklists: Extra space. In case of Microsoft Word, use the paragraph icon to find the extra space and eliminate accordingly.
A high level of concentration and intelligence for the language is very important for proofreading and if you have such qualities then you can become a professional proofreader and start providing professional proofreading service just after some training as well as the tips given in this post can also help you in developing your skills as a proofreader.
Nice write up, covered almost all the important aspects of proofreading. However, I found a typing mistake in this article itself.
Please correct me if I am wrong but the para right above the checklist that starts with ” First step I think is……” has a typing mistake in it. Where the author says, “…make sure you don not repeat it again :)..”
I do not want to point out a mistake here. However, I would like to highlight it for the betterment of our community.
Thank you for highlighting.