Tips for proofreading?

[sr71plt]

Who do you think you're fooling, James? No one edits your work. You just made that up. I'm not suggesting that you have a great need for an editor for your work--just that you made that slam of editors up because it's what you do.

 

[rjordan]

Spellcheck and grammar check programs do help quite a bit, I admit. I typically don't use either, having turned off just about everything on my copy of Adobe OpenOffice so that I'm not bothered with squiggly lines when I type. I'm sure that shows in some of my stories. But there are times when I turn it all back on and go back through a story. I don't always agree with the suggested corrections given, but it does help to point out some errors I had already missed.

I long ago gave up on trying to write anything "perfect." I can't do it, and I shouldn't expect to be able to do it. And when it's pointed out that I've made an error in my stories, the most I can be bothered to do is shrug my shoulders and move on.

I'm sure it was a typo, but it's Apache OpenOffice. I keep spell check on all the time, but nothing else. I dislike all autocorrect features.

I just added an extension for OO called Linguist. You can get a list of unrecognized words in a manuscript, a complete word list alphabetically, same list sorted by frequency and statistics like word count, sentence count, long word count, percentage long words, etc.

Not often useful, but interesting.

rj

 

[slyc_willie]

I'm sure it was a typo, but it's Apache OpenOffice. I keep spell check on all the time, but nothing else. I dislike all autocorrect features.

I just added an extension for OO called Linguist. You can get a list of unrecognized words in a manuscript, a complete word list alphabetically, same list sorted by frequency and statistics like word count, sentence count, long word count, percentage long words, etc.

Not often useful, but interesting.

rj

Apparently, yesterday was a field day of typos for me.

Yeah, it's Apache OpenOffice. I've been doing a lot of work lately with Adobe; guess I have it on the brain.

I try to keep my copy of OO as minimalist as possible. If it was more cost-effective and convenient to do so, I'd use the hundred-year-old Royal typewriter I have on a display stand in the living room.

 

[rjordan]

Apparently, yesterday was a field day of typos for me.

I touch type at 80-100 wpm. I don't always follow along on the screen. It interrupts my thinking. I let typos go, though that takes training as touch typists nearly always know when they have made an error. Then I run a quick spell check before I edit anything.

That works out fairly well for manuscript where I expect several edit cycles, but it doesn't work out as well for email and forums. Sometimes I forget to edit those, and raw text gets posted.

I've been using OO for about 15 years now. I don't miss MS Word at all, though I admit I miss Word Outlining at times.

rj

 

[slyc_willie]

I touch type at 80-100 wpm. I don't always follow along on the screen. It interrupts my thinking. I let typos go, though that takes training as touch typists nearly always know when they have made an error. Then I run a quick spell check before I edit anything.

That works out fairly well for manuscript where I expect several edit cycles, but it doesn't work out as well for email and forums. Sometimes I forget to edit those, and raw text gets posted.

I've been using OO for about 15 years now. I don't miss MS Word at all, though I admit I miss Word Outlining at times.

rj

I swore by MS Word from the mid-nineties up through the mid-2000s, but eventually the damn program was just way too convoluted and filled with an excess of unnecessary features that got in the way of doing anything creatively. Sure, the program can be parsed down, but I've gotten so used to OpenOffice that I won't use anything else unless I have to (say, for work).

 

[Tigersman]

Proofreading

Since I've been reading stories on Literotica, I have noticed quite a few that definitely lacked Proofreading or an Editor's touch. I send pms advising the author to print out their story, then read one page a day slowly. I suggest they do this for every page. I also suggest the author keep an old-fashioned dictionary nearby not to check spelling, but rather to check the definition of the word they are wanting to use. One prime reason I suggest this is because spellcheck does not check syntax. All spellcheck does is tell an author if the word used is spelled correctly. An example of using the wrong word is using "waste" instead of "waist" when the author is referring to a person's midsection. Even professional editors miss some things. I just finished reading for the third time, Sharra's Exile by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I found an error in grammar that I missed before I started to do volunteer editing. The editor missed an incorrect verb tense. The mistake read, "Sharra, and I was still a part of it, still damned." I think it should have been were instead of was since the sentence was talking about two people. This story was written in 1981. This goes to show you even the professionals are not infallible.

 

[sr71plt]

You send all of this to story authors who haven't asked for this sort of feedback? Bet you get some biting antivigilante responses. Unless they asked for a tutorial, I'd suggest you just move on to reading something more to your presentation taste.

 

[Handley_Page]

Apparently, yesterday was a field day of typos for me.

Yeah, it's Apache OpenOffice. I've been doing a lot of work lately with Adobe; guess I have it on the brain.

I try to keep my copy of OO as minimalist as possible. If it was more cost-effective and convenient to do so, I'd use the hundred-year-old Royal typewriter I have on a display stand in the living room.

I started using a Word Processor a long time ago; shortly after I got my first home computer.
When I finally arrived at Word 97, I stopped looking; it does what I need and, usually, when I need it.
Owing to a complete cock-up I had to upgrade/ get Word 2003.
I have no plans for a later version; the metro-sexual gibberish from Redmond pi$$es me off completely. Open office is good, but does not do compatible things with many of my colleagues.

Willy, would you be kind enough to take a few pictures of you typewriter please?

 

[slyc_willie]

Since I've been reading stories on Literotica, I have noticed quite a few that definitely lacked Proofreading or an Editor's touch. I send pms advising the author to print out their story, then read one page a day slowly. I suggest they do this for every page. I also suggest the author keep an old-fashioned dictionary nearby not to check spelling, but rather to check the definition of the word they are wanting to use. One prime reason I suggest this is because spellcheck does not check syntax. All spellcheck does is tell an author if the word used is spelled correctly. An example of using the wrong word is using "waste" instead of "waist" when the author is referring to a person's midsection. Even professional editors miss some things. I just finished reading for the third time, Sharra's Exile by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I found an error in grammar that I missed before I started to do volunteer editing. The editor missed an incorrect verb tense. The mistake read, "Sharra, and I was still a part of it, still damned." I think it should have been were instead of was since the sentence was talking about two people. This story was written in 1981. This goes to show you even the professionals are not infallible.

I get the distinct impression you have no idea how a writer's mind works.

And if you say you think you do, I'll tell you you're wrong.

By the way, break up your post a little. It's one big block of text and has at least three different subjects all jumbled together. There are also some incorrect capitalized words that jar the reader's eye. You should also be using quotes or italics in places in order to denote a particular title or phrase. You have also committed a few errors in basic punctuation.

This goes to show [you] even the self-impressed lackluster editor-types are not infallible, either.

 

[slyc_willie]

I started using a Word Processor a long time ago; shortly after I got my first home computer.
When I finally arrived at Word 97, I stopped looking; it does what I need and, usually, when I need it.
Owing to a complete cock-up I had to upgrade/ get Word 2003.
I have no plans for a later version; the metro-sexual gibberish from Redmond pi$$es me off completely. Open office is good, but does not do compatible things with many of my colleagues.

Willy, would you be kind enough to take a few pictures of you typewriter please?

Let me see what I can do.

ETA: Apparently, the camera function on my phone is too good. I could upload a picture of the typewriter, but it would be smaller than a thumbnail.

 

[sr71plt]

I started using a Word Processor a long time ago; shortly after I got my first home computer.
When I finally arrived at Word 97, I stopped looking; it does what I need and, usually, when I need it.

The Word Processor I started with was a Magnavox. It was great other than being self-contained with thick disks usable only in the Magnavox and printing costing a fortune in ink. Still, it was heaven after a typewriter.

And I agree about Word 97. I step everything I write down to 97 for storage and sending.

 

[rjordan]

My first word processor (1978) was Electric Pencil by Michael Shrayer on a TRS-80 Mod I and a $2500 daisy wheel printer. Really nice, but you had to remember to save periodically as it wasn't smart enough. Later, I had WordStar (I think) on a Mod II with CP/M.

I graduated to WordPerfect when I got my first IBM PC (1984), then to Word in about 1990. I much preferred WordPerfect, but switched for compatibility with other people. Word had a WordPerfect mode to transition new users.

When OpenOffice (then StarOffice) came out, it had most of the shortcuts of Word built in. It was a very easy transition and the only compatibility problems I had with Word users was the fact that Word's handling of tables was totally fucked up.

It still is. I occasionally still use Word on my partners computer when she needs me to help with her teaching load. You can build a table in word, print it, save it, load it back and it will not print the same way again without fucking with it for an hour. When you finally get it all the spacing right again and save it, the print out is fucked up again. I don't have that problem with OO.

rj

 

[legerdemer]

I wrote my qualifying exams on a VM terminal and hole punch paper, my dissertation on a Mac SE (my first Mac). Word 97 -2000 or so (Mac versions) were the sweet spots indeed; now I have to spend half an hour rooting around to turn off all the stupid options the Microsoft people think I need. At the top of the annoyance list is selecting whole sentences when you really only want to place the cursor in one particular word.

Alternatives are fine - Pages is actually not bad for Mac users - but I don't want to switch between several programs. I want one useful one, and to be able to trade files with anyone!

It's even worse with graphics programs. Much much worse. But that's for another thread.

 

[Tigersman]

Papers

When I went back to college for the second time, I was writing two to four papers for most of my courses. I was using Microsoft Word. This was during 1992 and 1998. I thought saving my word every ten minutes was good enough. I failed to save it to disk. One day I had to do something else so I saved my work. When I went to bring up my file, I did not recognize its contents. Somehow my work had been replaced with a file my wife had worked on, but had gone missing. I tried everything to find my work to no avail. I had to reenter all my work, some ten handwritten pages. What made this so bad was I was editing on the fly rather than writing my changes down first. Now I print out everything so I can proofread slowly. I also save everything to flash drive so I don't lose anything.

 

[scottslaughter]

One simple method of proofreading I’ve tried is reading my documents backwards. It’s easy to become so familiar with reading left-to-right that’s easy to pass over even an obvious typo or other mistake.

 

[rjordan]

One simple method of proofreading I’ve tried is reading my documents backwards. It’s easy to become so familiar with reading left-to-right that’s easy to pass over even an obvious typo or other mistake.

Eevn wtih a tpyo in alomst evrey wrod, tihs text is still readalbe. Our barin fgeirus it out.

Reading backwards makes the brain concentrate on letter order, not meaning and context.

rj

 

[PervOtaku]

I graduated to WordPerfect when I got my first IBM PC (1984), then to Word in about 1990. I much preferred WordPerfect, but switched for compatibility with other people. Word had a WordPerfect mode to transition new users.

I'm an old Wordperfect user going back to the DOS days, and still use it. I only resort to MS Word if somebody sends me a doc file, or if I need to send somebody a file that I want them to be able to edit. I've used it enough to know that I want to use it as little as possible. Of course the Wordperfect I'm using is 10 years old now, word processors at that point had already achieved all the features they will ever really need.

 

[slyc_willie]

One simple method of proofreading I’ve tried is reading my documents backwards. It’s easy to become so familiar with reading left-to-right that’s easy to pass over even an obvious typo or other mistake.

Eevn wtih a tpyo in alomst evrey wrod, tihs text is still readalbe. Our barin fgeirus it out.

Reading backwards makes the brain concentrate on letter order, not meaning and context.

rj

Similarly, I fail to see how this would be useful, unless you're Leonardo DaVinci.

Reading a technical document backward might be of some use, but when you take into account word flow, usage, context and syntax, I doubt this method would help with creative writing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ah, 35 years later the goddamned word processing aint a bit better than the day it started.

 

[scottslaughter]

I mentioned reading a document backwards as a method of proofreading. I should have added it's only one proofreading tool and I certainly wasn't suggesting it's the best in all circumstances.

 

[Tigersman]

slyc-Willie

I get the distinct impression you have no idea how a writer's mind works.

And if you say you think you do, I'll tell you you're wrong.

By the way, break up your post a little. It's one big block of text and has at least three different subjects all jumbled together. There are also some incorrect capitalized words that jar the reader's eye. You should also be using quotes or italics in places in order to denote a particular title or phrase. You have also committed a few errors in basic punctuation.

This goes to show [you] even the self-impressed lackluster editor-types are not infallible, either.

I think your user name says it all, well almost.

As to not knowing how a writer thinks, that statement was true until recently. Since I have been working with one author, they have gotten me looking at my work in progress like an author would which makes for a better story for the reader.

I suggest you stick to your backseat driving unless you are clairvoyant because you suck at mind reading.

The only two words I capitalized that should not have been normally, were done so for emphasis. Those two words were proofreading and editor which spellcheck capitalized during my post. The remaining things capitalized were proper names which are normally capitalized unless the rules of grammar have changed since I was in school.

 

[Tigersman]

sr71plt

You send all of this to story authors who haven't asked for this sort of feedback? Bet you get some biting antivigilante responses. Unless they asked for a tutorial, I'd suggest you just move on to reading something more to your presentation taste.

I have only received positive responses to my suggestions.

As to reading something more to my presentation taste, it's hard to tell whose stories have been proofread and edited and whose stories are a real mess.

 

[sr71plt]

I mentioned reading a document backwards as a method of proofreading. I should have added it's only one proofreading tool and I certainly wasn't suggesting it's the best in all circumstances.

This forces you to focus on individual words, so it's useful for finding misspellings that hide from the tendency to see what you expect to see in a straightforward read. We used to do this in the publishing houses before computer spellcheck came in, but not so much anymore. Spellcheck picks up most of that now, and there's not much payoff to doing it manually anymore. It doesn't help with heterographs (e.g., to/two/too), but then reading from back to front doesn't help much with that either.