What is Proofreading?

Proofreading is, in essence, the final stage of the editing process of a piece of writing and should only be carried out once all other revisions and edits have taken place. It is required by every person or organisation that produces writing for the public domain, that can include print advertisements, web copy, direct mail, information booklets, articles, books and so on.

First impressions count, so it is essential that the copy a company or organisation uses to promote or provide information about itself looks professional and is error free. So proofreaders are needed by businesses, universities, councils, doctors’ surgeries and so on. Proofreading is also an essential part of the publishing world.

A proofreader will read through an electronic or paper proof – the final copy of the text before it goes to print – to highlight and correct errors in the text. These can be:

• misspellings
• punctuation
• grammar
• spacing
• typographical
• alignment
• font and style

Proofs are typeset versions of a manuscript or copy – that means they have undergone all the editing processes and the text has been set out in the format it’ll appear in the final printed version of the text. The proofreader will usually have both the original copy or manuscript and the typeset version. Their job is to compare the two versions and pick out any errors. Once the errors have been identified and marked with the appropriate standard symbols the proof goes back to the typesetters to be corrected. Once corrected it is returned to the proofreader for checking. This process continues until the text is completely error free.

If you want to learn more about proofreading and how you can become a full or part-time proofreader why not request a free brochure about our course.