How can I catch more errors when I proofread?

Question

I have a problem where I often proof my own writing and I don't catch all the errors while I am reading through it. I often miss entire words out of sentences or find myself repeating words. I can read a document several times and I catch new errors every time. Eventually, I'll feel like I've caught everything, but I find out after I've posted or printed it that I left out some word. The whole process takes hours instead of a few minutes. This process is so frustrating that sometimes I just give up. Does anyone have this experience writing and if so, what techniques have you developed that help?

P.S:
For some reason, I make fewer errors and my writing is a lot speedier if I write it out long hand first. For some reason, the word processor makes it hard to keep your train of thought going because you find yourself derailed by the formatting. I also found using NotePad to be a useful tool. Since it doesn't have formatting, it is less distracting. I also set the width of the Window to be very short because it's less tiring to read.

Edit: I haven't picked an answer because all of these responses are great! I also want to keep the suggestions coming so that others will benefit. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

You could try reading the final draft out loud either to yourself or to another person. (That's what I have always had my own children do when they're working on school essays.)

Reading out loud slows you down so that you are less likely to read over a duplicated word and it will be more obvious when a word is left out. It is also a good method for detecting awkward sentence construction.

Answer 2

Read from the bottom up.

It derails the comprehension so it's much easier to see individual words, and you catch many more typos and dropped words.

Answer 3

I use a Mac. I use the built-in Text-to-Speech feature to read back aloud the words I have written. It is by far superior to reading yourself because the brain sometimes skips things right in front of your eyes! And the more tired your eyes, the ears usually hear better! You can achieve similar results if you use a PC.

Answer 4

I think the answer to your specific problem is that there is no simple solution. There is no trick. Reading out loud does definitely help, but ultimately if your mind is subconsciously fixing the errors as you go so that you read right over them without taking any notice, it's going to happen when you're reading out loud just the same.

You have to train yourself to see what's there instead of what you want to see.

It really is that simple.

The funny thing is that this is applicable to much more than just proof-reading. It applies to characters, to plots, to descriptions, to entire novels.

You have to see it as if you've never seen it before. It's difficult as hell, but you've got to learn it.

Just keep practicing. Go slow. Slow, slow, slow. Go slow enough and you'll only have to go once or twice.

Answer 5

Something I have done with considerable success is to read the finished product in a much larger font. When you are reading along in your normal font, it is easier for your mind to anticipate and gloss over words, even when they are obviously incorrect. By increasing the font size, an error tends to stand out more clearly, making it more difficult to gloss over.

All of these are excellent ideas, and if you are planning to do multiple passes through your work, it would be good to use at least two different techniques. Anything that gets through the first pass might be more easily detected in the second pass by using a different technique. Either way, I strongly agree with the recommendation to set it aside at least a couple of weeks. That way you don't do as much anticipating as you are reading.

BTW - I read somewhere that people tend to use the creative side of their brain when they are writing using longhnad, but they use the other side of their brain when they are typing. As a result, typing out your story as you are trying to develop it can prove to be difficult for some people because their creative side is not being engaged as much.

Answer 6

I don't know whether you do this or not, but one of the best ways of proofreading I've found is to print out the document and read it through in the paper format, rather than trying to proofread writing on screen.

Mark up your corrections on the paper in a particular coloured ink and correct them on-screen. Now take a break and do something else before going back to the paper proof again and correct the next set of errors in a different colour and so on until all corrections have been found.

Keep repeating this process until the draft is correct. Don't try and catch all errors in one read through, sometimes it can take several readings to catch them all.

Answer 7

I thought the obvious answer was this: Have someone else proof your work.

No matter how many times I go over my story, a reader will still find stuff I've missed. They'll also find sentences that I read as perfectly sensible, but that they can't parse.

Answer 8

Proofreading is the process of looking for errors. Revision is the process of improving the writing. The two aren't necessarily synonymous.

Yes, removal of errors usually results in an improved piece. But many other improvements require restructuring, better word choices, removal of stale idioms, switching passive voice to active voice, etc.

This sentence made me laugh out loud: The whole process takes hours instead of a few minutes. Forceful, effective writing takes more than "a few minutes."

Answer 9

Adding an idea that seemed to work for me.

1. Write in your usual font (by font I mean "times new roman", " Ariel", etc)

2. Change the format of the whole manuscript to a different font preferably with the following properties: A font you never read in, one that is similar to cursive (handwritten). Also change the line spacing if you need.

   3. It seems very effective, it slows your reading speed. We have read tons of books in "print suitable fonts". This new style causes our brain to read afresh ( turns off autocorrect in our brain).

   4. Cycle between the fonts once a while, to re-gain freshness.

Bonus : Re-reading in a cursive style, appears to stimulate my mind to restructure a lot of sentences. Making them crisp and comparatively better.

Answer 10

I just recalled a friend telling me years ago that he witnessed professional proof readers and editors, who work for publishers, use a pencil to plot a dot over each and every word as they read through a manuscript. It forces them to read every word. Of course, it is only a matter of time before your brain goes on autopilot again, especially on very long documents.

I thought of another idea from folks here about reading aloud and even a software suggestion. A speech synthesis program can help by reading the text back to you. It won't get the tone and pace right, but it helps as you read along.

Answer 11

I find that most of my mistakes occur at or across line breaks.

After your first proof-reading pass, change the margin slightly on your window - perhaps just by half an inch. This will cause all the text to wrap at a different point and previously hidden errors will become apparent on the second pass.

Of course I think that (as others have suggested) reading it out loud is the very best way, this way is quick and will always turn up a few more. In fact, it will reveal errors that will be MISSED by reading it aloud.

Answer 12

Is it possible for you to practice Ernest Hemingway's advice of leaving some time between writing and proofreading so you come to it fresher?

Answer 13

The best proofreader I ever worked with always read everything twice -- once forward and once backwards. The first reading caught punctuation mistakes as well as obvious errors; the backwards reading made every spelling error or unplanned repetition stand out very clearly.

Answer 14

It is theoretically impossible to proof your own prose. To achieve professional quality copy, no less than two sets of eyes must be applied. Writers can't self-proof with 100 percent fidelity.

The presence of the "second set of eyes" may not be available or practical. If my prose MUST be self-proofed, then while COPY is a DRAFT:

1. Create (print) a HARD COPY using black ink on white paper

2. Use a serif font (ex: Times New Roman)

   12pt or bigger

   Double-space

3. Maximize natural/ambient light, minimize projected/artificial light
4. Read
5. Markup (by hand - use a red pen)
6. Update to Version_n+1
7. Stamp (Tag) - "Change & Resubmit."

However, I'm going to resubmit Version_n+1 to myself. Within the confines of on-time delivery I will--

• Place as much time in-between writing and proofing as possible
• Use the first rule of style -- Have one.
• Not rely on or trust a spell check system.
• Continue to re-read/re-edit
• Expand time-intervals between reads/edits

Once satisfied; DRAFT VER_n of COPY becomes FINAL

Answer 15

You mentioned, that the formatting of your word processor is distracting you while reading through your text. One suggestion is using a Markup language like Markdown, that is also used on Stackexchange. This will separate your writing from formatting and you can use any text editor (like Notepad).

One tip for searching for doubled words is using the advanced search function of your word processor. Select »Regular Expressions« and use the following codes, then your doubled words will be found.

\b(\w+)\s+\1\b

Answer 16

Print out your work, as others have suggested. Print 2 or even 4 pages per sheet, thus using fewer trees.

Newer versions of Word (and most other word processors, I'd imagine) attempt to catch words that are spelled correctly but used in the wrong context. An example I see all the time is 'been' for 'being'. E.g. 'Are you been serious?'. In Word, potential errors like this are highlighted in blue when the grammar checker's on.

Also, I use an online editor called Autocrit. It's one of the few pieces of software I pay for. It highlights commonly overused words, repeated words and much more. For the novel I recently published, I put the whole thing through Autocrit before giving it to my human editor. It took me ages to review and address the issues this showed up, but it livened up my writing no end and left my editor free to focus on higher-level issues.

Answer 17

You could try using some sort of text-to-speech program. Once you've finished your writing, get the text-to-speech software to read it out to you. Missing words will stand out much more, and you can do it as often as you want without annoying a human :)

Some of the voices can be a bit awkward, but it should work well enough for your needs.

You can add a "Speak" command to Microsoft word, which will read out the selected text, by following these steps:

(copied from the linked page)

1. Next to the Quick Access Toolbar, click Customize Quick Access Toolbar.
2. Quick Access Toolbar Speak command
3. Click More Commands.
4. In the Choose commands from list, select All Commands.
5. Scroll down to the Speak command, select it, and then click Add.
6. Click OK.

Then just selected some text, and click the "Speak" button to hear it.

Answer 18

Use text-to-speech software. It's available on almost every computer nowadays, for free. The advantage of this is that the computer is stupid and will read whatever you have written, even if it makes no sense. (Of course, this approach assumes you will recognize the mistake when you hear it.) Human readers will instead often unconsciously fix textual mistakes as they read aloud.

(OT: My experience in teaching young children is that this human tendency to fix/guess often hinders learning to read, especially for comprehension. Watch for that with your kids. When they are reading aloud, don't let them paraphrase the text. Force them to read it word for word, phrase by phrase, exactly as written. [Scanning and speedreading are for skilled readers, not for beginners.] If your kids can't do this with age-appropriate texts, then they either need more phonics work, or they have dislexic issues, or they are rushing too much.)

Answer 19

Translate it (that is, manually, yourself, not using an app) into another language. If you are monolingual, consider learning Esperanto for that purpose.

Answer 20

I made a proofreading app and I feel your pain. If you are the author, you can't proofread it right because your mind tends to skip things it already knows.

The next step is to read it loud but that is not the best approach because you're still subjective and tend to race it down.

What most people seem to suggest is having someone else proofread or read it loud for you.

Since our last update, Typely is able to read text for you and the feedback we received is awesome.

Answer 21

Are you doing any technical writing? I work for a professional services company that does a lot of technical writing. We use automated scripts to help us with the trivial stuff so we can focus on content. One example is dealing with acronyms and making sure that they are called out correctly. This can take hours of your valuable time if you do it manually but goes much faster with a little technical help.

Becoming part of a strong team would be my second advice.