TIPS ON PROOFREADING YOUR CONTENT
Whether you're writing a magazine article, an essay, or an email to a client, you must ensure your text is error-free. The spell checker is helpful, but it isn't perfect. This is when the role of proofreading comes into play. The eight suggestions and approaches listed below will help you improve the efficiency of your proofreading sessions.
1. It's Important to Focus
Should you wish to catch mistakes, you'll need to concentrate. That involves eliminating potential interruptions and distractions. Switch off your phone, turn off the TV or radio, and avoid checking your email.
2. Write It Down
We read differently on a computer screen than we do on paper, so print a duplicate of your work. When you read aloud, your ear may pick up on mistakes that your eyes would have overlooked.
3. Eye for homonyms
Words with the exact spelling or sound but different meanings are called homonyms. Switching accept for except or compliment for compliment might be devastating, so be careful.
4. Be Aware of Apostrophes and Contractions
Its and it's, your and you're, and so on are frequently interchanged. A comparable blunder has the potential to undermine the trustworthiness of your text. Also, the apostrophe should never be used to construct plurals.
5. Double-check your punctuation
It's fine to concentrate on the words, but don't overlook the punctuation. Pay attention to capitalized words, commas that are missing or superfluous, periods that are misused, and so on.
6. Turn it over and read it backward
We often become oblivious to our errors when we write since the brain automatically "corrects" incorrect words inside sentences. You can break the pattern by reading the sentence backward, word for word.
7. Examine the Numbers
It's different then stating that the acquisition cost $10,000 instead of $100,000. What about China's population? Is it a million or a billion and a half? Make sure that your figures are correct.
8. Have it proofread by someone else.
After you've checked all of the previous items, you can look here have a friend proofread them for you. You'll be surprised at how many mistakes you've made. A second person will also be better able to assess whether the sentences are correct.