Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 3, Volume 8 | Page 29

W HY P ROOFREADING I S S O I MPORTANT
Unfortunately, lack of editing in
some self-published books and arti-
cles is just as obvious as lack of proofing.
What does it say about a book when there
are spelling errors all over the back cover,
or in the acknowledgement or the dedica-
tion. It practically screams, “This is a loving
hands at home book.” Those are the things
that often make bookstores shy away from
the self-published author even though
the book might be fantastic and perfect in
every way. It is a perception fostered by
those who rush to print without going
through very necessary steps. Don’t be a
sloppy author.
Spelling errors are sometimes very elu-
sive. The eye sees what it thinks it sees.
Have you ever done those tests where only
the first and last letters of words are cor-
rect, but you can still read the entire para-
graph or page? Your mind fills in the proper
letters despite the fact that what is on the
page is wrong, wrong, wrong.
W HY YOU C AN ’ T TRUST S PELL C HECK
You can’t trust your spell checking tool
to catch everything. It won’t know if you
are using the wrong form of a word. As long
as words are real and in the SpellCheck dic-
tionary they will pass with flying colors.
One of the best tools is a friend who is a
great speller and also a nitpicker. Like hom-
ing missiles, they will find every inverted i and
e, every e that should be an a and every
missing or extra letter or word. Think how
many people use wrong words like ‘then’
instead of ‘than’ or ‘insure’ when it should
be ‘ensure’ to name a few. If you aren’t for-
tunate enough to have a friend like that, do
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ask someone else to read your work, or
even enlist two friends. If all that fails, let it
get cold and then read it again. It is amazing
how nasty typos and misused words seem
to jump off the paper, daring you to spot
them once the manuscript isn’t fresh out of
the printer.
Some authors simply don’t understand
why writer’s groups, conferences, and writ-
ing teachers emphasize having a manu-
script proofread and professionally edited
if possible before submitting it. As it stands,
with the volumes of manuscripts received
every day by agents and publishers, poor
formatting or obvious sloppy work habits
are enough to earn an invitation to the
waste basket on the way to the dumpster.
It is also important to try to keep edit-
ing and proofreading separate. When you
are editing an early draft for content, that’s
when you really must focus on developing
and connecting ideas and monitoring the
flow of the piece. If you find spelling or
punctuation errors during that phase, by all
means fix them. But once you have what
you presume is a final manuscript, plan on
doing a read-through for proofreading
without focusing on content. It is some-
times very hard to do both at one time be-
cause one is creative and the other is
“nuts and bolts.”
If you are self publishing, order as many
generations of printed proofs as needed.
There is a reason for this. The eye and mind
take in different media in different ways. If
you only proof on your computer screen,
you could easily see what pops up when
reading a print proof or listening to it read
aloud.
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W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE