Proofreading Is Not a Copy Edit
- hbkiser
- Apr 27
- 3 min read
Once or twice a month, a prospective client will reach out to commission editing services, stating some version of "all I really need is a quick proofread." 🤯
There's a couple of problems here (and one is NOT that a quality proofread is the opposite of quick).
First, with zero exceptions (in my experience so far anyway), the manuscript in question has not been through any other editing process. Not developmental, not line, not copy. Once or twice, the writer has had "good feedback" from a beta reader.
Second, "proofread" is decidedly not a synonym for "edit." It's a type of editing, sure.
A proofreader corrects mistakes and inconsistencies. But it's the last stage of the multi-stage editing process, not the whole of the process. One small, surface-level (yet still vital) portion of the editing Venn diagram.
Etymologically, proof and prove both come to English from the Latin for "confirmation by testing,” i.e. provide factual evidence to show a thing is true. (Remember your 10th grade geometry class?) Historically, before technology took over the world as we now know it, a galley proof was created prior to printing a manuscript for distribution; this galley proof is the version that would be checked and corrected, i.e. proofreading. Nowadays, you might here the term galley or uncorrected proof (or even advance copy!) to refer to today's electronic version of a galley proof.
Proofreading is intended to catch and correct typos, stylistic irregularities, grammatical flubs, erroneous punctuation, formatting gaffes. In short, it strives to make a text error-free before the final version is released for an audience.
But a manuscript can be flawless in all these ways and still be more in need of editing than a chocolate milkshake is in need of a straw.
Other than a lack of knowledge about "the rules," the challenge in proofreading our own work lies in our closeness to it. We know what we meant to say. We know what our words sound like in our head. We care deeply about our ideas, our descriptions and characters. And our brains read what we want to be there, not what is really there. So, what's an (almost*) foolproof — see what I did there? — method for proofreading?
Go slowly. Do NOT read like a reader, overtaken by narrative or led astray with context cues. Read what appears, exactly as it appears.
Take it in stages. Isolate each section, paragraph, sentence, word. Read each by itself as a single unit. Is it correct? Is it consistent? Is it spelled correctly? Does each comma have a specific grammatical rule for inclusion?
Bonus points: read the text out loud: engaging two senses will catch more errors than a silent scan alone.
More bonus points: read the text backwards, one word at a time.
*I say almost because no matter how diligent you are, an error of some type might evade capture. In my long career, I'm consistently amazed by the niggly little errors that demand to stay in place no matter how many times a text is proofread, and no matter how many people are involved in the process. Their will to live gives hope to all of us who struggle against the odds! But all kidding aside, these rogue mistakes should be by far the exception. Careful proofreading gets you as close to perfection as any human can expect.
