Editorial Services And Proofreading Your Own Work

For writers, the primary idea of editorial services is both a bane and boon to the literary scene. It had been a definite advantage to aspiring writers who were able to pass through the watchdogs at publishing houses and have their work evaluated.

The extra expenses might be justified somehow although some people think it is unnecessary. The most annoying part of this development, however, is the proliferation of bogus, under-qualified people passing themselves off as editing experts.

Editing your own

Some successful writers, past and present, are one-man bands. They write their work, rest them for a time period, and later go back to edit and proofread it themselves.

After judging their work to be adequate, they ask their agent to sell it to publishing companies. Does the process look easy? Both the writing and the selling are definitely hard to do. But, both can be done.

For the writer, the mantra had always been “good writing is re-writing.” For the agent, having enough good sense to spot a good literary work is a must, or he should not be in the profession at all.

Judging from the horror stories (wrong formats, errant words, spelling mistakes) propagated by these free-lance editors in editorial service companies, the problem looked like proofreading lapses more than anything.

If writers can do their own editing, they certainly can learn how to do proofreading.

Proofreading

This is the end part of the editing process, focusing on surface errors like wrong spellings, grammar and punctuation errors. Proofreading should be done only after the editing revisions are finished.

Put another way, separate the editing work from your proofreading work. When editing, you want to connect ideas, smooth out the word flow rather than thinking of punctuation, grammar or spelling.

Here’s a sampler on how to proofread your work.

Some proofreading tips

Never depend on grammar and spell checkers. They have limited dictionaries. Spell checkers will not catch the error if your misspelled word is also a valid word. (your and you’re, there and their, etc.)

Proofread for only one kind of error at a time. It is easier to catch grammar errors if you are not checking punctuations and spelling mistakes at the same time.

Read slowly. Better yet, read the words aloud. Two senses (sight and sound) are always better than one. You can do this if you separate the text into separate sentences.

Press the return key after each period so that every line begins with a new sentence. Use a ruler if you are working with a printed copy.

Circle every punctuation mark to force you to look at each one. Later, go back and ask if these punctuations are correct. (Commas usually flood some long-winded sentences without your knowing it.)

Read the paper backwards. This technique is best in checking spelling. Start from the last word and work your way to the beginning. Since grammar is incoherent, your attention is solely on the spelling of each word.

Learning process

As you do your own proofreading, you would know your weak and strong points. You would then know how to do a systematic strategy to find errors that are typical of you. You will learn to discover specific areas in your writing that need careful attention.

Do you think paid editorial services can do this for you?


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