7 Effective Content Editing and Proofing Techniques

So after hours of painstaking research and agonizing moments of cherry-picking the words, you have created a great piece of content. You put it up for the world to see. And someone points out a mistake – factual, grammatical, or typo. The next few minutes are spent by the reader trying to find (and count) the errors rather than focus on what you are trying to communicate.

That’s why proofing your content at the end of all the hard work is important. Here are some proofing techniques that may help.

1. Allow a colleague or a professional editor / proofer to check the content after you have done your best checking it. A fresh pair of eyes can pick up holes better than the writer

1. The content should be checked at least thrice, if not more. If time permits, do one more check. Do not attack the copy and start copy-editing it straightaway
2. At the first level, check the content the way you used to scrutinize the examination question paper. Just warm up to the nature of the content 

1. As you begin the second level, activate the ‘Track Changes’ feature of MS Word. Some editors are distracted by the marked up changes; hence prefer to work on a ‘Final’ version. It depends on the editor’s preference.

Check the contents for gaps in language, adherence to style guide, tonality, spelling errors.

For example, usage of US or UK English, grammatical errors, poorly constructed sentences, incorrect word choice, usage of tenses. You can insert relevant comments where the message may get diluted if you change it. Or if certain facts or figures seem to be incorrect based on your subject matter understanding. It’s best to allow the writer to make such changes.

 Do a plagiarism check if there are inconsistencies in the writing style. 

1. At the third level, check the copy for logical errors such as inconsistencies in names, dates, designation, usage of first-person and third-person, and so on

For example: John was getting anxious about the impeding wedding date, June 3, 1992. A few paragraphs later, the editor may come across a line: The cops started their investigation from the date of John’s wedding, July 3, 1992.

For example: ABC Company is in the business of turning around your fortunes. We help companies run their processes better. ABC also enables you to run superior quality checks on their processes.

In this case, the writer uses both the first-person and third-person to describe the company and the audiences he / she is talking to. 

1. Once you are done with your edits, run a spell check using the spelling and grammar check feature of MS Word 

1. If you are in the habit of editing the document in Track Changes mode, choose the ‘Final’ option in Track Changes and look for any green or red underlined contents in the clean copy 

These are just some of the many errors that you may across while editing and proofing. Also, remember that there is no such thing as an 'error-free' copy in the true sense of the word. Even if it’s checked by two people, a third person may come along and point out an error. Hence, three layers of checks may not be enough. But we all live by deadlines, don’t we? And most of us are lucky to get even those three chances to read the copy.

 Post script: This writer did not get an opportunity to get the article proof-checked due to time constraints :)