Parker's Points
July 2008
The Top Ten Proof Reading Tips
A document that is less than perfect reflects poorly on the writer. If a legal document has an error or errors, the recipient begins to wonder what else is wrong with the attorneys work. The client loses confidence. The final document is a reflection of you so hire good proofreaders and then proofread the document yourself. Here are a few tips to help you to do it successfully.
- Read the copy out loud. (I do this with my door shut. Otherwise people begin to wonder! :))
- Read the copy backwards to focus on the spelling of words. Covering the words above and below your line helps you to keep your eye just on the line you are proofreading. You don't have the context and meaning to let you know if your eye skips a line.
- Use spell check and grammar check as a first screening but don't rely on them. There are too many possibilities for error with spell check. (Examples: there and their, to and two, our and hour etc words that are correctly spelled but may not be the form you wanted.)
- Have someone else read it. Administrative support can do the first proof reading. Your review however is required in case the person missed something.
- Print it out and read it even if you have proof read it on your computer. Something can look entirely different on paper. It is easy to miss something on your computer. Some people suggest that one should never proof read on your computer.
- Proof the body and the headlines separately. It is easy to miss something in a headline. We seem to concentrate more on the body.
- Use a ruler to check the copy line by line. Keeping your eye on one line at a time is important.
- Have a dictionary close by and a thesaurus too. When in doubt look it up if you can. It is always hard to find a misspelled word in the dictionary however!!
- Don't proof for every type of mistake at once - do one proof for spelling, another for missing/additional spaces, consistency of word usage, font size etc.
- Take a break and come back to it fresh. How often do you find a typo
after the fact even when you have proof read the document several times!
The wrong spelling looks right until you leave it and come back to it
when you are fresh.