Improving my proofreading skills

[Guest]

 

[LadyCibelle]

Clearly, I'm doing something wrong, because only one author has asked me to proofread more than once. My method of proofing is to read the story, catching typos, homonyms, whatever, and changing them as I go. Whenever I change something, I note it in an e-mail to the author, i.e., Page 3: Changed "it's" to "its." Then I attach the document, saved as "StoryPROOFREAD," and send the e-mail.

Tips from those of you who are actual editors would be helpful.

PM on its way to you shortly.

 

[CopyCarver]

Clearly, I'm doing something wrong, because only one author has asked me to proofread more than once. My method of proofing is to read the story, catching typos, homonyms, whatever, and changing them as I go. Whenever I change something, I note it in an e-mail to the author, i.e., Page 3: Changed "it's" to "its." Then I attach the document, saved as "StoryPROOFREAD," and send the e-mail.

Tips from those of you who are actual editors would be helpful.

Sounds fine to me. Making the fubar sheet can be a ton of work for you, especially when someone makes 96 errors per 'graph, but I can't see why the authors would feel abused, unless you've been stuck with some of the 10 percenters who are trolling for endless praise instead of honest proofing.

You might want to experiment with Word's "Insert Comment" feature. It changes whatever text you highlight to blue or red, leaves a directional trail to the error, and inserts a comment box in the right margin where you can explain that the plural of fireman isn't "firemenses." The explanations can be really helpful to people who don't understand proofreading marks, and might not even know the distinction between "its" and "it's." "Insert Comment" is infinitely cleaner and more straightforward than the (expletive deleted) "Track Changes" and it doesn't get mangled when the marked-up copy is sent as an attachment.

 

[LadyCibelle]

Sounds fine to me. Making the fubar sheet can be a ton of work for you, especially when someone makes 96 errors per 'graph, but I can't see why the authors would feel abused, unless you've been stuck with some of the 10 percenters who are trolling for endless praise instead of honest proofing.

You might want to experiment with Word's "Insert Comment" feature. It changes whatever text you highlight to blue or red, leaves a directional trail to the error, and inserts a comment box in the right margin where you can explain that the plural of fireman isn't "firemenses." The explanations can be really helpful to people who don't understand proofreading marks, and might not even know the distinction between "its" and "it's." "Insert Comment" is infinitely cleaner and more straightforward than the (expletive deleted) "Track Changes" and it doesn't get mangled when the marked-up copy is sent as an attachment.

You see,.....that's another reason why I like you so much CC. I've just spent half an hour typing a PM to Jammie trying to say exactly but it didn't come as clearly as you.

You said exactly what I wanted to say, in probably a third of the time it took me to type it....sigh.....I'm not awake yet.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

You might want to experiment with Word's "Insert Comment" feature. It changes whatever text you highlight to blue or red, leaves a directional trail to the error, and inserts a comment box in the right margin where you can explain that the plural of fireman isn't "firemenses." The explanations can be really helpful to people who don't understand proofreading marks, and might not even know the distinction between "its" and "it's." "Insert Comment" is infinitely cleaner and more straightforward than the (expletive deleted) "Track Changes" and it doesn't get mangled when the marked-up copy is sent as an attachment.

as an author, what I really like is to have an editor return a marked up copy. Maybe it's just my old creative writing days kicking in, getting all those red-slashed pages back... *drool* (I know, I'm sick.. glutton for punishment)

but I like to get my text back with the "comments" mentioned above and whatever is changed /suggested HIGHLIGHTED in the text, so I can compare my original with the edit.

The "on page 4, I changed it's to its" drives me crazy... I have to go hunting, instead of having two windows open and looking at the changes side-by-side...

Just one author's preference....

 

[CopyCarver]

You said exactly what I wanted to say

Great minds run in channels. (We'll ignore my ex wife's retort: "so does the New York sewer system.")

as an author, what I really like is to have an editor return a marked up copy. Maybe it's just my old creative writing days kicking in, getting all those red-slashed pages back... *drool* (I know, I'm sick.. glutton for punishment)

but I like to get my text back with the "comments" mentioned above and whatever is changed /suggested HIGHLIGHTED in the text, so I can compare my original with the edit.

The "on page 4, I changed it's to its" drives me crazy... I have to go hunting, instead of having two windows open and looking at the changes side-by-side...

Just one author's preference....

Yeah--clearer for the author and much easier for the editor. I've even been using it at a university press, where other editors and compositors often follow a bewildering array of divergent "standardized" symbols

 

[Guest]

 

[LadyCibelle]

Yeah--clearer for the author and much easier for the editor. I've even been using it at a university press, where other editors and compositors often follow a bewildering array of divergent "standardized" symbols

That's the way I've been doing it since I started editing several years ago and I never had any complaints from anyone. Some writers even thanked me after receiving my "edited" copy and said how clearer and easier it was for them to see where they had boobooed the thing.

 

[snooper]

Thanks, everybody. I've been hesitating about using Word features because I've probably got an older version of Word than most people, but I'm going back to using that and if an author can't read it, he or she can TELL me that and I'll do it the other way.

If the Editor has the older version of Word, it won't be a problem, since MSWord is backward compatible. The trouble starts if the editor sends back something edited in a newer version of Word that the original. The way round that is for the Editor always to send Word6 versions back.