5 (kind of) Perfect Proofreading Methods
5 (kind of) Perfect Proofreading Methods
Get all that Writers at Work has to offer, including posts on strengthening your writing habits and workshops on mastering the art and business of being a creative writer on Substack. Become a free or paid subscriber. Your writing and writing career are worth it.
“Muphry's Law: “If you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”
— Mary Norris
We’ve all been there. Most likely, there’ll be typos in this post. I’ll finally spot the typos and flush with embarrassment over all the people who read it and thought I was…what? What do we think people think about us when they find a typo in our work? Unprofessional? Lazy? An amateur?
Could be. I used to be extremely judgmental when I stumbled on a typo—especially in a book. (!) Outrage.
But now that I’ve been through the publishing process with HarperCollins and The New York Times and other reputable media outlets, I see typos as mystical. How can that many people miss them? Why do our eyes autocorrect to make things right even when they’re not?
This is all to say that we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves when it comes to typos. (I’m jumping ahead to hack #5 below.) The more we hate ourselves for having a typo or three, the more we will hate proofreading.
The proofreading stage is your best friend; it’s a reason to celebrate. Why?
It should feel good to be there. You’ve done so much! Far more than most people do. Despite your doubts about what you’ve written, you’ve gone through the entire process and have a complete piece of writing that another human being can read (!).
On the other hand, isn’t it time to call it done? You’ve done so much.
Actually, no. Proofreading is the final step in the process and so necessary. Typos are easy to miss, and technology still hasn’t found a foolproof way to catch them, but I have (sort of).
5 Proofreading Hacks
Hack #1: If you don’t use Grammarly, do so. It’s free and will catch more errors than Microsoft’s remedial editor tool does. I try to use both. (I upload the text to Grammarly online because the in-document tool seems to miss things—though uploading the text messes up the formatting.)
Hack #2: Print a copy of your text. Using a hard copy makes it less likely you’ll miss errors.
Hack #3: Read aloud—but backward. Reading aloud makes it easier to catch typos, but only if you read from the last sentence of your document to the first. If you don’t read aloud, your eye will autocorrect, and you’ll miss errors. If you just read aloud from beginning to end, you’ll fall in love with your story or the sound of your own voice and miss errors. Read backward, sentence by sentence. (Not word by word, obviously.)
Hack #4: Use Substack! I like to email a test post to myself. Here’s how you do that. Receiving your post as an email will change the appearance enough that you’ll be able to catch typos and other errors.
I also like using the Preview function. That shows you how your post will look and changes it enough to read it with a proofreader’s eye. Here’s how you use the Preview function.
Hack #5: Go easy on yourself. Missed errors and typos suck, but they happen to all of us.
Takeaways
Use Substack’s test email and preview functions to proofread.
Typos suck, but they happen. Don’t be hard on yourself.
If you catch typos in anything I write, I blame Baby Theo.
Book a meeting with Substack Writers at Work
I can save you years of flailing around on Substack, trying to figure out the platform, and not getting any traction. I’ve seen the most amazing results in the Substack writers I’ve worked with: journalists, psychologists, people in tech, culture writers, creative writers of every genre, healthcare practitioners, scientists, those just starting out, and those that have been on Substack for years.
Each 30-minute Zoom meeting with me gives you an expert set of eyes on your Substack. I help you
focus your Substack,
figure out how your talents and expertise work best on this platform,
up-level your writing,
use Substack to leverage your career and achieve your goals, and (of course)
increase your subscribers.
I share with you the advice the folks at Substack gave me and all my experience as an author at HarperCollins; the creator of two bestselling, featured Substack publications; a former advisory editor at The Paris Review; and a creative writing professor at Northwestern University.