How to Proofread Your Own Work

In today’s Journal

* How to Proofread Your Own Work
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

How to Proofread Your Own Work

Much of this first appeared in Self-Editing for Writers (in slightly different form), which I offer free at StoneThread Publishing. (Scroll down when you get there.

I will always recommend a good first reader to catch those little glitches that pop-out at any reader as s/he reads.

Even though I’d cycled over my previous book several times (individual chapters and later the whole thing), my first reader still found three errors in the book when he read it. Two were misspellings of a Mexican word (vega vs. the correct viga) and one was a typo (books vs. the correct boots).

A good first reader is essential. And first readers don’t take a lot of care or cleaning. Just keep writing and feeding them your stories and books. (grin)

But if you don’t have a first reader, here are some tips that collectively make up the next best thing:

Ten Tips for Proofreading Your Own Work

Proofreading your own writing is more difficult than proofreading the work of others. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Read Your Work Aloud—This one is first because it’s the most important tip I can give you: Read your work aloud, even if you do so quietly. (But it’s better and more fun if you emote.)

When you read aloud, you’ll catch problems you wouldn’t normally catch with your eyes, especially inflection and punctuation errors.

Remember, the reader can’t hear the character’s voice when he reads your work. He has to see it. But if it sounds right to you when you read it aloud, it will sound right to the reader when he reads it silently. Back when I was copyediting a lot, I often read my editing clients’ work aloud as I edited.

2. Use Spell Check—Use the spell checker, but don’t use it as a substitute for your own mind. It will not always catch wrong words (e.g., that for than, an for and, waist for waste, books for boots).

3. Read in Reverse Order—To be sure each sentence makes sense by itself, read in reverse. Read the last sentence first, then the next, then the next and so on to the first sentence.

When you read in the proper sequence, especially if you’re reading silently, your mind will often insert letters and even whole words that are actually missing from the writing. This is especially true of shorter words like “the” or “of” that happen to occur at the end of a line of writing.

4. Be Sure—If a word doesn’t look right or “feel” right to you, don’t depend on the spell checker. Look it up in the dictionary.

5. Focus Down—Watch closely for the omission of “ed” or “s” on the end of past-tense or plural words. (Reading in reverse will help you catch these as well.)

6. Focus Down Part 2—Double check the spelling of words that sound similar to each other or for which you might have confused the meaning. If you aren’t sure, look them up.

For example, effect is a noun, but affect is a verb; the writer or speaker implies, but the reader or listener infers; advice is what you give someone, advise is what you’re doing when you give someone advice; a whole is composed of its parts, and the parts comprise the whole.

7. Focus Down Part 3—Check longer words to be sure you haven’t omitted any vowels (a, e, i, o, u).

8. Focus Down Part 4—Be careful of words that contain double vowels. Succeed, proceed, and exceed are the only words that end in “eed.” Supersede is the only word that ends in “sede.” All other words with this sound end with “cede”: precede, recede, and so on.

9. Focus Down Part 5—Be careful of words that contain double consonants, such as occasion, occurrence, and accommodation. My personal thorn is millennium. Seems like one N should be enough.

10. Maybe Most Importantly—Don’t depend on “professionals” like news anchors, who use words to make their living, to be correct.

For example, despite its widespread misuse, “likely” is an adjective, not an adverb, and it is synonymous with “probable,” not “probably.” I cringe every time a weather guy says “It likely will rain tonight.”

Now, see why I wrote at the top that I always recommend a good first reader?

Of course, if you’re blessed with the ability to check the things above on the fly as you’re writing, so much the better. Do that.

Never write sloppily. Always write the best you can the first time through, then cycle to let the characters insert anything you might have missed. Then send the mauscrupt to your first reader. S/he is truly invaluable.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Top 10 copyright myths There are other valuable links on this page. I urge you to read them.

Accessibility Tips for Indie Authors

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 820

Writing of Blackwell Ops 24: Buck Jackson Returns (tentative title)

Day 1…… 3724 words. To date…… 3724
Day 2…… 3706 words. To date…… 7430

Fiction for April…………………….….… 43691
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 269483
Fiction since October 1………………… 572539
Nonfiction for April……………………… 13080
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 141800
2024 consumable words……………… 411283

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 7
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 89
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

To be sure you continue receiving the Journal after May 31, subscribe free, then click the Donate link at the end of this post and make a recurring donation of $3 per month. In doing that, you’re effectively paying me 5 cents per hour to provide you with the Journal every day. Donate Here.