Why is proofreading important?
Want to easily improve your written content? Here are some easy-peasy proofreading tips you can use straight away!
When you have your own business, there’s a lot of content needed for your website, your marketing, your social media profiles – it never ends. Some content is easier to go through than others, but the process can be boring, monotonous and, often, easier to outsource to an experienced proofreader.
And why is it important? Proofreading is so important to your business because:
- It convinces the customer you know what you’re talking about.
- Professional content proves you take things seriously.
- It builds trust and confidence in your potential customers.
The trouble is that when you’ve been staring at the screen to write your content, making it the best it can be, the idea of proofreading it through can feel draining. Glazed eyes, wandering thoughts can mean that small errors in your writing get missed.
Every error makes a difference – even a missed full stop can have an impact on how professional your writing looks.
While I can’t put the fun or glamour into proofreading, I’ve shared some tips to make it easier to check through your writing:
Proofread for short bursts of time
If proofreading isn’t your thing, it can feel like an intensive to do. That’s why it’s really important to take regular breaks in-between to keep your concentration high. Set an alarm for 20 minutes, then take a break. Your concentration will be at its highest and you know it’s not going to be endless staring at the screen. Reward yourself with a break and come back to it later.
Check for one type of mistake at a time.
There are all sorts of different mistakes to be aware of when going through your written content: whether the right word has been used, punctuation, grammar, formatting or style. It can help to go through one type at a time so that you don’t feel overwhelmed. Start with checking through one aspect of the writing, such as the punctuation – full stops, commas, speech marks. Have they been added in the right place? Are there any missing? Checking your work through is much more manageable when you’re focused in on one type at a time
Read your work out loud
Reading your work out loud can bring a new sensory perspective to your work. You can often ‘hear’ where there are mistakes. For example, a full stop allows a reader to ‘pause’ before starting the next sentence. If there is no moment to pause between sentences, you can very quickly tell that from how you read the sentence.
Get a second pair of eyes
When you’ve been reading your own work, it can be hard to see how it can be improved or to find errors that can be corrected. It helps to get another perspective, an outsider’s view – even the most experienced proofreaders need this! So, when you’ve checked through your work, it is always helpful to have somebody else read through your work. They will be looking at your content with ‘fresh’ eyes and will be able to see any mistakes you might not have.
