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Do You Need Some Tips for Effective Proofreading?

Last Updated On: June 19, 2017

The first question one may ask and that is, why do you need to proofread written material? There is one easy answer to that and it is because you don’t want your translation to be misunderstood. That’s the first answer but added to this is that you don’t want readers to think you are careless or illiterate. Most of you are perfectionists and even to see one overlooked error in your writing is enough to make you feel ashamed.

Most translation services incorporate their own proofreading services into their service, so you can expect they have developed their own techniques for effective proofreading such as the following:

1. Make sure you have even light on the document. This will ensure no words are partly shielded which will make it easier to see the whole document. Many proofreading services errors occur because a small mistake or typo is hidden by a dark spot on the text.

2. Give yourself a rest every so often. It’s amazing how even an hour or two between sessions of proofreading makes mistakes easier to spot. If you have the time, a day or two between proofreading would be even more effective.

3. Read the text out aloud or ask someone else to read it out loud to you. Mark Twain always had something to say about proofreading and proofreaders. He used to say that a single proofreader would be incapable of spotting every mistake and generally didn’t have a very high regard for the proofreaders he had encountered. His opinion is not shared by everyone, and by speaking the text out loud it’s much more likely that mistakes are going to be noticed. If you start to stumble or hesitate it is a sure sign that there is something amiss in the translated material which needs correcting.

4. Proof read the same translation several times. If a mistake has been missed the first time around, it is unlikely to be missed the next time around.

5. Proofread the text from the bottom of the text extract backwards or from right to left on each line. Just by varying the method means that your mind and your eyes see things that they might miss if you were reading the same text in the normal direction.

6. Print the electronic version off and use that for the proofreading. With the electronic form as viewed on a computer screen is easier to miss whole lines or chunks of text, while with the hard copy version you can keep a better track of where you are up to.