The copy editor and proofreader perform different, but equally important, roles in the publishing process.
The proofreader provides the final ‘quality check’, which means they are responsible for ensuring all errors are flagged and corrected.
As we teach our proofreading course students, this doesn’t just mean spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. It also means checking things like:
- Names – including titles and spellings
- Places – for example, is it Granada in Spain or Grenada in the Caribbean?
- Potentially problematic legal issues – such as copyright and defamation
- Other information stated as ‘fact’
Highlighting anything that seems unclear or may need checking with the author can save embarrassment later and ensure the piece of work (and the publication) retain authority.
Our accredited online proofreading course dedicates lessons to this important aspect of the job to help our students become highly-skilled professionals.
Proofreading, like anything else, takes practice. And although the skills are fairly easy to learn, our online proofreading course shows there’s a lot more to it than most people realise.
Everyone wants a quick and easy solution to every problem. And some people think they can learn proofreading skills on our proofreading course overnight.
There are some techniques which will enable you to learn proofreading quickly. But there is a lot more to our proofreading course than that!
It is ALSO about looking at:
- What you read
- When you read it
- Why you read it
- How you read it
So this course deals with all these things – and more.
The problem is that all of us have been reading in a certain way ever since we first went to school. So our reading habits are very deeply ingrained– we have been using certain subconscious techniques for many years, perhaps decades!
So if we want to become really efficient proofreaders, we need to unlearn a lot of bad habits, as well as learn better ones.
This is not an overnight process. It’s a bit like learning to drive a car or ride a bike in a completely different way. It will take time, and lots of practice, before the new techniques and methods of working become second nature.
So you will need to be patient – and very disciplined.
See our proofreading course