Improve Your Proofreading

We plan to restart our weekly contests soon. In the meantime, you may find this article helpful.

We cringe when we make an error in a text and have learned certain habits that decrease our mistakes. Perhaps, these tips will help when you don’t have an editor to review your writing.

* Buy editing software (about $150) that looks for errors. The software we use allows us to add to the list of faults the software will look for in a text.

* After reviewing your story on your computer, make a hard copy and proofread it marking the paper. People our age learned to read text on paper and books, not on a computer screen. You will likely notice errors you didn’t see when looking at a story on your computer screen.

* Proofread in good lighting.

* Increase the font size.

* Read through the text a few times, waiting several hours or the next day to review.

* At least one time, read from the last paragraph to the first. This forces you to read the sentences and not the story.

Do you have tips that we’ve missed?