Proofreading Your Own Document
Proofreading a document is very important and it’s something that you can do yourself. Proofreading your own document is something that most writers should be able to do.
I’ve provided a list of proofreading techniques and a proofreading checklist to help you with your own corrections.
There are several reasons why you should proofread your own writing.
1) Learn from your mistakes
Learning from your own mistakes is an important part of learning. So by finding your own mistakes and correcting them you’ll be learning from them and getting better.
If you’re able to wait a day or two before proofreading your document, as recommended on the proofreading techniques page, you’ll be able to read what you actually wrote. You’ll be able to tell when it doesn’t sound right or when the word which you used just doesn’t fit in the sentence.
When you find these mistakes and correct them you’ll be learning how to improve your writing. You’re learning which are the better word choices and sentence structures to use. To do this you don’t need to know all the rules of grammar, just what sounds right. You should know this from your own reading.
2) Improve your document
No matter how good at writing you are its very doubtful that you’ll be able to produce perfect writing in your first draft. Proofreading can improve what you’ve written.
This is important because you’re probably writing for a reason. You could be:
- At school or university doing course work and assignments.
- At work writing letters, emails or reports.
- You might be a scientist trying to publish your results.
- You might be writing for your own website.
In all these situations you need to produce the best possible document that you can. Proofreading your own document can help to do this. It’ll enable you to get the best marks, produce work that’ll impress your boss, make sure your results will get published or give your visitors confidence that you’re an expert.
3) Provide a good first impression
Mistakes in your writing, even small ones, can leave a bad impression of you in your readers’ eyes.
Most people know when what they’re reading sounds right or wrong. They might not know why, they might not be able to quote the grammar rule that’s been broken or why the word isn’t quite right, but they can still tell if it’s not quite as it should be.
This sort of feeling about writing can leave a bad impression. It’ll cloud the readers’ perception of the rest of the document and the information contained within it. The content might be superb but if the language used isn’t right the reader won’t have confidence in the contents.
Proofreading your own document can remove these mistakes and leave a good first impression on your readers so that they’ll remember the contents of your writing.
Proofreading your own document isn’t something that’s difficult; it’s something that you should be able to do.
However if you need a second set of eyes to read it or it’s a very important document I can help you. I have experience of reading many different styles of documents. See the page about my proofreading service for how I might be able to help you. Or contact me if you have any questions.
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By Jolyon Dodgson, copyright © 2011-2020.
Excellent-Proofreading-and-Writing.com - Proofreading and writing help for excellent first impressions.
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