How can Proofreading Help?
Hello, I’m Traceywordsmith.
In case you're not entirely convinced, I thought it might be helpful to explain why getting your writing proofread by an independent, third party professional is such a good idea.
So much depends on your writing making a good impression, whatever your line or work:
You might be a student investing a great deal of precious time and money in your undergraduate degree, your masters or your PhD; some of you will also be doing this in a language which is not your native tongue. How well you do in your studies will have a direct impact on your future career.
You might be a business owner preparing your website or other marketing material for publication, your annual report for your board of directors or governing body, or a prospectus for potential investors.
You may be working in academia and writing an article or a chapter for a journal, or you could be writing an entire book in your academic field of study.
You could be a freelance writer preparing a short story or even a novel or a piece of non-fiction for publication in print or on the internet.
Whatever you’re writing – and this is true whether you're new to the game or a hardened scribe – you can become so immersed in your own ideas that it can be hard to see the words on the page for what they are. Writing may not even be your thing, and you may see it as an unwelcome necessity for your business; for instance, you might be a brilliant photographer with a perfect eye for visual composition, or a graphic designer with a real skill for layout, but maybe words leave you cold and you'd prefer to get on with what you enjoy doing rather than messing around writing blogs or websites. You could also be one of those people who didn’t really take much notice of English lessons at school and the subtleties of apostrophe use are lost on you!
That’s where someone like me can help. The spell checker can’t always pick up on all those inadvertent errors, the theirs from the there’s or the you're from the your, for instance. And the spell checking tool certainly doesn’t pick up on repetition which can make writing sound clumsy and laboured. A proofreader will look at your text with a completely impartial and unemotional eye. S/he can stand in for your intended audience in a way, as the author, you cannot – you’re too emotionally involved. You may be a subject specialist, but communicating your specialism and showcasing your knowledge at its best is something a proofreader can help you to do. Getting your writing independently proofread can iron out glitches in grammar. It can pick up inconsistencies in capitalisation and use of names and places as well as numbers (is that 9% or nine %? 24 or twenty-four?). Proofreading can smooth out written text to make sure you’re saying what you want to say in a way that’s appropriate to your audience without annoying them with unnecessary errors; errors that could lose you marks or even lose you business. It can help you, your novel, your essay, your dissertation, your thesis, your business, your website, be the best it can be.
If I want my bathroom tiled, I’ll call in a professional. I might have ideas about the sort of tiles I would like. I want certain colours and a certain size, for instance. I might have the mathematical skills necessary to be able to work out the number of tiles I need to buy. I may even have the rudimentary skills to enable me to tackle the job with a tub of tile adhesive and a trowel. But I want the job done properly, so I would rather call in someone who is more experienced than I am, with the time and the skills to do the work professionally. If you’re baulking at the idea of paying a fee to someone to read over your writing, it might be worth thinking of this admittedly rather clumsy analogy. What you write is a reflection of you and you want it to make the best impression it can. A proofreader is there to support you in that goal and provide constructive, helpful feedback so that you can be confident your words and not your errors are doing the talking.
To see how I can help you to achieve these goals, please do not hesitate to email me at tracey@traceywordsmith.co.uk. My rates are flexible and competitive and I am responsive and reliable. I am thorough and love the challenge of using writing at its best as a powerful communication tool. If you're concerned about not being sure of the difference between copy editing and proofreading, don't worry; it's a blurry line and we can work out together exactly the amount of intervention you would like me to make.
Let me help you to make the most of the words you use!
