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How to Use Proofreading Tool for Error-Free Writing

Date published: April 18, 2019
Last updated: July 2, 2024

Proofreading content deals with carefully reading and finding out errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation, so they end up correcting before publishing online or other media. Being a writer, you have to play the role of a proofreader as well, which is someone who tests or checks the proofs for errors. With the popularity of the internet, the professional writers have got the opportunity to present their views, ideas and information to a broader range of audience. The internet is filled with proofreading tools that help in carrying out the important task of proofreading. There are ways of carrying out the proofreading task using online tools. We will be looking into these methods to use these tools to get flawless content, have a look as under:

The Proofreading techniques

Once you have developed or written the content, proofreading comes the second task to be considered. Proofreading is often called as the final check for your content. Once you have made your content ready with your arguments and ideas, and have placed it with the right structure, the final step comes into the picture, which checking the writing. Proofreading will have several things including the title, structure, the subheading, the spellings and the grammar. Luckily with grammar check tools for checking the grammar part becomes easy. You need to check the things that are relevant suiting your chosen genre. Once you complete this then starts the real work of proofreading. In other words, write first and then proofread.

Use Proofreading tools wisely

There are various online tools available for proofreading; all you need to do is to pay attention to the spell checking feature that is telling you. Do not often rely on the spell check completely to catch everything but consider it to be a handy tool that can help you in catching up the typos and redundant words. Besides, checking the spelling with these tools, there are editing apps as well that help you to edit the content as per your requirements. With the advent of these tools backed with technology, proofreading has become a simple ball game.

Read backward

We all have become the unabashed skimmers. Even while we proofread the content we love to read instantly that makes it simple to find out the small words including a, he, she, they to, the and so on. Also, we tend to forget to look at the end of words considering the presence of the suffixes including ing, ly, ion and ent. Hence reading backwards would be a beneficial strategy for proofreading. It helps to reduce the errors and allow us to check every word. Reading backwards followed by reading the content will help in putting yourself into the habit of having the patience to check every word and carry out the proofreading properly.

Review one aspect at a time

Remember your content is more than a word. It has several features as discussed below:

  1. Formatting that deals with spacing between the lines and the words and lines, font and bullet- margins, and tabs that are to be checked
  2. Numbers and dates as per the accuracy level
  3. Data, charts, images and graphs
  4. Titles and names
  5. Hyperlinks and web addresses
  6. Logos and trademarks

Avoid editing everything at once, make sure you review one aspect of your content at one time.

Read it—thoroughly.

Once you start to check the copy make sure you look for the following details:

  1. The references are to be checked as per the accuracy and pages
  2. You need to be identified precisely in the photos

Make sure you know that proofreading is altogether a different ballgame and it has to be done by reading properly and precisely.

Wrapping up

If you are carrying out your proofreading work, make sure you give some time space between writing the content and proofreading the same. Fresh eyes can find more errors than tired ones. Even though you rely on some proofreading tools and resources, it is always a safer side to review the content on your own to give the best for the publication.

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