Proofreading

Proofreading is the process of changing a text with the intention to eliminate mistakes in it. Unlike editing, proofreading mostly regards rough mistakes and text’s formatting; changing stylistics, syntax, checking the credibility of facts etc. is not a part of the proofreading process.

Proofreading regards:

  • typos
  • spelling mistakes
  • punctuation mistakes
  • grammar mistakes
  • eliminating excessive spaces between words (or adding them in case they were missed)
  • incorrect contractions and abbreviations
  • incorrect hyphenations
  • incorrectly used hyphens and dashes
  • incorrectly composed and|or formatted lists
  • incorrectly formatted footnotes
  • the overall formatting of a text (indentations, intervals between paragraphs, citations formatting, observing citation styles requirements, and so on).

What is proofreading for?

Although a text is usually checked and corrected by editors on the later stages of it being prepared to print and\or publication, proofreading is a crucial stage of this preparation as well. Proofreading provides:

  • easier perception of a text by editors on the later stages of correction
  • more sophisticated and quality processing of a text by editors, since they do not need to pay attention to every mistake.

It can be said that proofreading is a sort of elementary editing, which eliminates the roughest errors, technical flaws, and so on.

Proofreading