Thursday, August 1, 2013

Three Easy Proofreading Tips


In today’s world, consumers want to make educated purchases. But the way consumers obtain that education is very different than in the past. Gone are the days when humans questioned each other in person about goods and services. These days, it’s all about putting your information online where it can influence buys – a practice commonly known as content marketing.

There are countless ways of getting information about your products and services out to the masses but it all starts with text. It’s more important than ever to have copy that is informative, helpful and error-free. That last one is a biggie as many job postings now stress proofing skills. It can be tedious but here are three tips I use to simplify proofreading.

Simply Wait

Whatever you’re writing - - blog posts, brochure copy, press releases, etc. - - you’ll easily miss typos and other mistakes if you proof your work immediately after finishing. If time is not a crucial issue, wait up to an hour to read your work again and you’ll find that it’s much easier to spot errors.

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It may be surprising to realize that reading your copy word-for-word backwards really helps with your proofreading efforts. But, this method is especially handy when trying to spot issues with grammatical tense and punctuation.

Avoid Distractions 

This goes against our natural urges but blocking out all distractions while composing your copy can have a significant impact on your proofreading steps. You’ll take serious strides to cutting down on proofing time by closing your email, putting your phone away and dedicating a measured block of time to working. A great tactic for bloggers is putting the Distraction Free Writing Mode to use when composing a WordPress entry.

I hope these three proofreading tips will be helpful in your work. What are some of the tricks of the trade that you use? Please let me know by leaving a comment below. Thanks for visiting!

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