vital tricks for proof reading a manuscript

Vital tricks for proof reading a manuscript

Can you write on and on for days without thinking what your fellow researcher or proofreader would have to say when this manuscript lands on his desk.
I believe this is not any easy thought for me, when it comes to drafting a manuscript, article for my blog, my research paper or a minor report. It drives me nuts and takes the fun out of writing. Although I am an advocate of free writing myself, not practicing it often, yet proofreading is a huge task. But if and whenever I am assigned the task to proofread it takes away all the pressures. It becomes so much easier if you are proofreading work done by someone else. Next time you come across proofreading task for yourself or for some one else.

So here are some of the tricks for your help:

• Leave the text for a week or so before reading it. It is then less close and immediate and the time may allow you to get some distance on it.
• Print it out. If you’re used to reading the text on the screen, then printing it out can give you a new view.
• Print it out in a new font. You’ve looked at the text in your usual font for long time – changing it might provide you with a new look.
• Read the text aloud. This can help you to hear klutzy syntax, missing and misplaced words … and you might also spot commas and full stops in the wrong places. However, like reading, writers often say what they think they have written so this isn’t fool proof! One way to deal with this is to
• Ask someone else to read the paper for errors. Get them to mark the things you need to check. If you co-author, then this is something that you can do for each other.
• Use a ruler to guide your reading, either silent or out loud. The ruler forces you to read line by line rather than skip through.
• Use the computer to check for obvious grammar and spellos. Even if it picks up things that you don’t agree to, it still allows you to look at selected bits of text more closely.
• Circle all of the full stops and check each one. This forces you to look at whether the stops are in the right place but it also shows you sentences, short and long. Holding the paper at arms length allows you to see how many sentences you’ve crammed into one paragraph – are there too many or too few do you think?
• Check your known common mistakes – keep a list of the things you do incorrectly and use this as a check list

The most important thing of course is not to rush. Rushing almost always means that there are things you won’t see. Taking time to proofread is particularly important if you are sending a paper into a journal or submitting a thesis. Sloppy proofreading gives the critical reader the impression of very sloppy scholarship. This is not something you want someone who sits in judgment on your work to think. So do, do make the time it takes … Proof-reading matters.
Do you have any additional tactics that you use with proof-reading?
Source: http://patthomson.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/tactics-for-proof-reading/