I recently attended an Introduction to Proofreading course, run by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, in London. Although proofreading and translation go hand in hand, I’m largely self-taught and decided to make getting some formal training in the field one of my goals for 2009.
Here’s the best advice that I took away from the event, which I hope will help translators, translation buyers and anyone else who needs to proofread texts on a regular basis as part of their work.
- Read slowly.
Make sure that you read what is actually there. If you read too quickly, your brain tricks you into seeing what you know should be there, not what your eyes are actually seeing, and you will miss errors.
- Use a guide.
Place a ruler, a piece of paper or something similar under the line you are checking and, if you are checking against copy, under the line you are reading against. It will help you to focus on the line you need to check and your eyes will not wander to the line below.
- If you find an error in a line, re-read the whole line.
Sometimes, errors just seem to leap out at you. If your eye is drawn to an error, you may well have overlooked another, less obvious error in the same line so make sure that you check the entire line again.
- Read long and technical words carefully.
It is very easy to skip over long and technical words, missing any errors that are lurking within them.
- Don’t rely on spell checkers!
Spell checkers are handy but cannot be relied on. Sometimes, the accidental transposition of letters can actually create words that are correctly spelled but are not the correct word, e.g. form instead of from. The spell checker will simply accept them as correct. Only you can spot these errors.
- If in doubt, check.
If you are not sure of anything, such as the spelling of a certain word or how best to divide a particular word, then look it up. There are plenty of excellent dictionaries and reference books that can help you.
- Take regular breaks.
If you are tired, you will miss errors and your brain will trick you into seeing what you want to see, not what is actually there. Taking breaks also helps to make sure that you keep reading slowly: as you get into the swing of things, you can actually speed up without necessarily being aware of this.
- Use proof correction symbols.
It takes time to learn them, but using standard correction symbols such as the BSI 2005 proof correction symbols makes it so much easier to see what needs changing in the text and where. And, as they are standardised, everyone involved in the publication process will know what they mean so there will be no misunderstandings, hopefully resulting in an error-free final text.
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Good stuff, I’ll try this out when peer-editing!
Our local translation group had a professional editor present to us on how to proof/edit our work. She suggested printing out to hard copy instead of reading on screen. Helps a lot!
This is a wonderful post. My advise is not to count on MS Word spell checker or any software. Just get someone else to look at your work.
Great post. Proofreading is definitely the key tip.