writers.com feature:

Proofreading: Captain Ellison of the Proof Patrol & Some Monks

By Paula Guran

This is a true story.

I was waiting for my son to finish his guitar lesson at the music store one day and my cellular phone rang. (Actually it "spoke." It said, in a robotic tone. "Incoming call...incoming call...") I answered. The voice on the other end said, "Paula?"

"Yes?"

"This is Harlan Ellison."

"On, hullo Harlan."

(What in the world was he calling from Los Angeles for?)

"I'm looking at this news release you did for Nebula Stories 3 and you misspelled 'liaison'."

"I'm sorry. I'm not even sure I'm the one who made the mistake, but it doesn't matter. I hate it when these things happen..."

"Yes, I know..."

MORAL: Make sure you take care to proofread everything you write or Harlan Ellison may catch you.

Thank goodness there are people out there who do still care about such things. We all should. Why? This is an oldie, but...

A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to copy the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that the monks are copying copies, and not the original books.

So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there was an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

The old monk goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. One of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks the old monk what's wrong.

"The word is celebrate_," says the old monk.

Proofreading is not copyediting or editing of any kind, really. When you "proof" your work you are looking for "surface errors" involving spelling, punctuation, grammar, typos, and word choice in what is, essentially, the finished piece.

Proofreading is not easy and proofreading your own work is even harder. It is often the bane of my existence. I try, I really try...

In any case, I need to improve my skills and -- probably -- so do you. Here are some hints for successful proofreading reproduced by permission from University of Maryland:

Cultivate a healthy sense of doubt. If there are types of errors you know you tend to make, double check for those.

Read very slowly. If possible, read out loud. Read one word at a time.

Read what is actually on the page, not what you think is there. (This is the most difficult sub-skill to acquire, particularly if you wrote what you are reading).

Proofread more than once. If possible, work with someone else.

Most errors in written work are made unconsciously. There are two sources of unconscious error:
1. Faulty information from the kinesthetic memory. If you have always misspelled a word like accommodate", you will unthinkingly misspell it again.
2. A split second of inattention. The mind works far faster than the pen or typewriter.

It is the unconscious nature of the worst that makes proofreading so difficult. The student who turned in a paper saying, "I like girdle cakes for breakfast" did not have a perverted digestion. He thought he had written "griddle cakes" and because that's what he was sure he had written, that's what he "saw" when he proofread. If he had slowed down and read word by word, out loud, he might have caught the error. You have to doubt every word in order to catch every mistake.

Another reason for deliberately slowing down is that when you read normally, you often see only the shells of words -- the first and last few letters, perhaps. You "fix your eyes" on the print only three or four times per line, or less. You take in the words between your fixation points with your peripheral vision, which gets less accurate the farther it is from the point. The average reader can only take in six letters accurately with one fixation. This means you have to fix your eyes on almost every word you have written and do it twice in longer words, in order to proofread accurately. You have to look at the word, not slide over it.

In proofreading, you can take nothing for granted, because unconscious mistakes are so easy to make. It helps to read out loud, because 1) you are forced to slow down and 2) you hear what you are reading as well as seeing it, so you are using two senses. It is often possible to hear a mistake, such as an omitted or repeated word that you have not seen.
Professional editors proofread as many as ten times. Publishing houses hire teams of readers to work in pairs, out loud. And still errors occur.

*Remember that it is twice as hard to detect mistakes in your own work as in someone else's!*

Copyright (c) 2004 Writers on the Net. This feature was originally published in "Writers.com," the monthly electronic newsletter of Writers on the Net. This publication may not be reproduced in print or posted elsewhere on the Web or used in any other fashion, in whole or in part, without written permission from Writers on the Net/Writers.com. Subscribe here or by emailing writers@writers.com.

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