Paul Stevens - The # 1 Killer Proofreading Secret

The # 1 Killer Proofreading Secret

All Rights Reserved 2012 Paul Stevens

An Article in StevesHow 2! Series

Smashwords Edition

Contents

Introduction

So far I have written about 35 Titles. Itstaken about 12 months. Ive lost count of how many revisions Ivemade to these books or articles in that time. A lot. And the reasonis, each time I reread them I find more errors. Now if you areserious about taking advantage of the amazing self publishingplatforms out there you do need to publish clean error free copy.Any book on e-book publishing will stress this. Else it will createa bad impression, one of amateurism and will probably result inreduced interest in your other Titles. But the one thing I havelearnt over and over again is that proofreading is actually quite adifficult task. Difficult in that it is actually very difficult topick up all the errors in your copy. How many times have you readit, sworn it was clean with no errors, only to reread it a fewmonths later and you find another whole batch? I know I have. Ivebeen tempted to use professional proofreaders but I have beendetermined to bootstrap myself up the publishing ladder all on myown efforts. No proofreaders, no cover designers, no editors, nonothing, just me. So when I stumbled on this amazingly effectivetechnique you might say that firstly I am in a position toappreciate its value, and secondly to put a price on it. I wouldhave been prepared to pay several hundred dollars for this secretwhich I could then use effectively for my entire career as awriter. Lets strip that right down and say $50 for sure. Thatwould be an absolute bargain. And here you are getting this secretfor the ultra ultra cheap price of $2.99!

There is going to be many many a time you aregoing to thank me for this, trust me!

TheBasics

I will have assumed you have followed thebasics in proofreading your document:

1. You have used the spelling checker in yourword processor and made all the spelling corrections.

2. You have checked all the highlighted grammarqueries and corrected these where necessary. Valid fragments may behighlighted but can be ignored.

3. You have checked for highlighted spacingerrors and corrected these.

4. You have printed the document out and readit a few times yourself.

5. You have got at least one other person toread it.

(By the way if you are using Word spell andgrammar check have you checked the options available from rightclicking on an error?)

You are now at the point where you reckonyour document is clean and ready to be published. Wrong! There arestill plenty of errors in it, trust me. Maybe one error every 150words. After you have followed the technique I describe below itwill be interesting to see how many additional errors it picked up.Keep a tally of errors found and see if I am right! (As amatter of interest, my tally for this document was 7 errors in 1000words, having already done 1-5 above!)

The Technique

The Technique is simplicity itself. You needto LISTEN to your document. Yes, thats right! LISTEN! Because whenyou listen to it you pick up all sorts of omissions and commissionsthat may have skipped the eye. This is because the eye reads whatit expects to find there, and sees it even if it isnt there. As an example let's say I wrote I went the shop for mywife. Of course I meant to say I went to the shop for my wifebut I missed out the word to when I wrote it even though I thoughtI wrote it. And when I read it I expected to see it there and eventhough it wasnt the eye assumed it was. Or I might write I ate 2apple today. Of course I meant to write I ate 2 applestoday but I didnt and when I read it I didnt pick it up becauseI assumed it was there. But when your reader reads that I ate 2apple today he notices it and there goes your credibility. I meanif you cant even write the phrase I ate 2 apples today properlywhat does that say about your capabilities as a writer? Its anegative vibe which gets reinforced with each progressive error.Its actually quite strange how the eye and brain makes thesequantum jumps, its almost as if it is in a hurry to get to the endresult and doesnt mind making a few errors along the way. As Isaid, thats OK for you and your brain but its not OK for yourreaders and their brains.

And you know what else! If you listencarefully you can even pick up punctuation errors, e.g. a full stopleft out causing sentences to run illogically together.

We are going to use a free Google programGoogle Translate.

Heres the 10 step procedure:

1. Go totranslate.google.com.

2. On the From and To dropdown boxes select English.

3. Open your documentusing your word processor of choice and leave it open for theduration of the session.

4. Copy about 350 wordsfrom your document into the Google box. You want to be able to seethe LISTEN button at the bottom of the page at all stages.

5. Click the LISTEN buttonand listen to the spoken version of your document. Its quitepleasant really.

6. When you hear an errorclick on the LISTEN button again, that will pause it.

7. Go to the openeddocument and correct it and save it.

8. Delete all the text inthe Google box up to the point of the error.

9. Resume the audio fromthat point (it will always start from the first word in thebox).

10. Continue4-9 above until you have proofheard your whole document.

(By the way, if you check in the dictionarythere is no such word as proofheard, but there is now because Ihave just invented it. Its mine. You read it here.)

You can in fact pour your whole document intothe Google box, but then as each error comes up you then needto scroll down to the bottom of the page to pause the Listenbutton. Meanwhile the audio is continuing on and you may miss othererrors.

This way, you are going to end up with a veryclean document, one that you can confidently put out there. Its apity Google hasnt put the Listen button at the top of the box aswell, that way you could load your entire document. Of course thereare other Document to Voice programs, this is just one of them andyou may wish to investigate other options. But the technique is thesame.

Dont just proofread your document!

Proofhear it!

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