5 Top Tips To Proofread Efficiently and Effectively.

The blogging revolution has turned journalism on it’s head. 15 years ago before blogging really took hold, careers in journalism were restricted to the elite few who were well connected enough to secure an apprenticeship in a leading magazine or broadsheet. It was a highly desireable career path only accessible to a priveleged few. Blogging changed all that, as this new medium allowed anyone with a desire to blog, to blog about anything they wanted and to build an audience, potentially. To begin with, this led to a lot of quality issues and self indulgent content but this has died away and been superseded by a second wave of high quality blogging content, bridging the gap between the man on the street and high street journalism. Blogging is the voice of the people, by the people, for the people.

But, of course quality standards have now risen and if you want to be a serious second generation blogger you need to produce audience-targeted, well-written content, with the correct word count to make it search engine optimized.

Achieving these levels of quality requires proofreading, but of course bloggers do not usually earn anywhere near enough to hire a proofreader and so have to do the proofreading themselves. Proofreading is of course vital, but it is a specialism all of it’s own that writers/bloggers do not necessarily possess. This can mean that proofreading can be be both inneficient, laborious and poorly excecuted by bloggers. This is why I thought it would be useful to provide 5 Top Tips To Proofread Efficiently and Effectively.

1.Have a break between writing and proofing

Always try to have a break of several hours (ideally days), between finishing writing and proofreading. This is because we can often become blind to errors, just after writing, and if we come back to the document with fresh eyes we can see more errors with less effort. Our error checking will be more efficient.

2.Break the proofreading down into separate tasks. Proofread and search for specific types of errors in a systematic way. First work on sentence structure and flow and syntax. Perhaps then look at choice of words. Once this has been done then look for punctuation. Breaking it down this way should make it more efficient.

3.Read your articles out loud as you proofread.

This can help you to more quickly spot errors.

4.Work in a quiet place free of distractions and interruptions to boost concentraion

If you are going to spot mistakes you need to be really focused. You need to remove any distractions and so I suggest turning off the phone or radio and closing down email. Place a do not disturb sign on the door or near your desk, so you can work without interruption from colleagues.

5.Changes the sizing of text and look of the document. If you change the spacing, size or colour of text it can help to remove some of the error blindness which occurs when you have been working on a document for too long. It makes it look like an unfamiliar document and which can make you view it with fresh eyes, potentially spotting more errors.

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