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Proofread Like A Pro (June 2011)
- 1. Proofread Like A Pro Media Trust 21 June 2011
- 11. Spelling
- 18. Exercise 1
- 19. Punctuation
- 26. Exercise 2
- 28. Grammar
- 33. Exercise 3
- 34. Break
- 38. House style
- 41. Final exercise
- 43. Thank you 14 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA t +44 (0)20 7462 2600 f +44 (0)20 7462 2601 w redhouselane.com e [email_address]
Editor's Notes
- Any decisions about content and style have already been made Proofreader enforces those decisions Last line of defence: proofreader should be the last person allowed to make alterations before the copy becomes public
- Don’t rely on instinct – your instinct is to ignore certain errors
- See what’s there: refer to previous slide Four eyes: don’t try to proof something you wrote Backwards technique is for spelling only Against copy: for double-checking that amendments have been implemented (for copy with multi-stage approvals) Easier to spot errors in hard copy; easier to mark up corrections on screen
- Knowing when NOT to amend is a superior skill to knowing when TO amend Everyone’s time: proofreader’s, typesetter’s, sometimes writer’s/managers’
- Are any of these setting off anyone’s cringe reflex?
- What people think of first when they think of proofreading, but not often a huge part of the job Step 1: learn to spot errors Step 2: learn to guess accurately HOW errors have occurred – this helps when trying to work out what to correct it TO Correctly spelled misspellings: vile / vole (i/o adjacent), bit / but (i/u adjacent)
- Phonetically correct: limm, jiofizziks, newmattic Homophones: Jim / gym, carrot / carat, birth / berth, slay / sleigh Made-up words: misunderestimate Farther: physical distance; further: to a greater degree
- Only incorrect when inconsistent If unsure of the writer’s intended style for the text, stay alert for variable words and track which option has most instances
- British norm is to space out, American norm is to close up Note grown-up/grownup/grown up and in-depth/indepth/in depth, where spacing out alters meaning from one part of speech to another “ She has grown up” versus “She is a grownup/grown-up” “ An in-depth interview” versus “She covered the subject in depth”
- More about styleguides later
- 5 mins Not all options have only one right answer, some have more, some have fewer
- Does to written text what hand gestures, intonation, pauses, facial expressions do to speech. Only 7% of communication is verbal, rest communicated by other factors; punctuation stands in for those other factors in written text
- Comma splice: sits between two independent clauses (i.e. either could be a standalone sentence) – returning to this in Grammar, so skim
- Apostrophe misuse is very noticeable to certain (i.e. middle class) demographics – misuse them and people will look down their noses, more so than for any other punctuation error
- Bad breaks change the pronunciation of the word in the reader’s head Sometimes you need to stet hard hyphens to distinguish them from soft ones
- Ignorance of different dash types outside publishing / typesetting is widespread, endemic – learn the difference and you can never go back, like when someone points out the singer in your favourite band breathes really loudly between lines CONSISTENT TRUMPS CORRECT You should be able to remove a parenthetical aside entirely without affecting the sense of the sentence
- Material following a full colon need not be able to stand alone as a sentence. Material following a semicolon must be able to stand alone as a sentence Use semicolons to divide list items when the list items contain commas – reduces ambiguity
- Exclamation point aka screamer, bang, splat Interrobang invented in 1962 by ad agency head Martin K. Speckter to improve the look of ad copy lines Like swearwords, screamers suffer from the law of diminishing returns
- Punctuate this passage!
- Comma splice: change comma to another mark; split into 2 sentences; insert coordinating conjunction; make one clause dependent on the other; insert semicolon/dash+conjunctive adverb Tautology=repetition of same idea in different words: a huge great big man, say it over again once more Pleonasm=use of unnecessary word that is implicit in the word it describes: two halves, big giant, round circle
- These get people wound up disproportionately but actually they’re “just horrible” Always amend in formal communications
- Actually wrong. Causes ambiguity / confusion, turns off readers.
- Actually wrong – ambiguity, confusion, sometimes make you sound ridiculous
- Online correction marks pdf from De Montfort University, Leicester Demonstrate marks on flipchart / whiteboard (use “Redhouse Lane” or “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”)
- “ becautilise”
- Tone of voice: technically the writer’s / copy-editor’s responsibility, but it would be unprofessional not to keep it in mind
- Compiling / maintaining a styleguide: initially time-consuming, but pays off in the long run. Not enough organisations have one; not enough that do maintain them.