We editors and proofreaders rarely use a literal red pencil anymore (although I do know some who still print out their text and put those cryptic proofreading marks all over it—I do agree that it’s still easier to see errors in print than on screen). I still get the definite impression, though, that writers of all kinds of materials still greet us with an air of apprehension and a glance to locate their author shield for easy access in case of the need for defense.

So Many Judgments!

The editorial/proofreading eye is designed to make judgments, so writers and web page designers tend to feel judged when we discover things they didn’t see. It’s all about finding mistakes, which are always a little embarrassing. I can see the desire to avoid confronting one’s mistakes, and also the tendency to think that the editor or proofreader is also judging you personally and thinking you’re a “bad” person because you didn’t catch all the mistakes. Not so, though. We’re evaluating the text, not you as a person. Really!

The Fresh Set of Eyes

I can’t speak for all editors and proofreaders, but I’ve talked to enough of them to know that, yes, we do take pride in seeing what others might miss. But we also tend to have someone else proofread our stuff. Every mind makes assumptions, especially about material we’ve seen over and over again. I would never claim that this blog is error free, for example. That fresh set of eyes can make all the difference.

Preferences

Lots of grammatical judgments in particularly have subjectivity written all over them. What works for one style of writing or one publishing house is forbidden with another. Just check out the Chicago Manual of Style. It’s filled with recommendations and preferences; less is set in stone than one would think. I have numerous style sheets for different clients to keep all their preferences straight. The main pattern we editors are often looking for is simple consistency for the benefit of the reader. You can stretch and even break “the rules” if you do it consciously and consistently. And one thing the editor can do for you is to make sure you are consistent within your own system (capitalization of important terms that are not normally capitalized comes to mind).

Flexibility in writing and editing is the way I like to work. It allows me to collaborate creatively with my writer and/or publisher to make for the best read for their audience. A scholarly book is not going to look like a stream-of-consciousness fiction. We have to be just as flexible as required for the folks we collaborate with.

So, contrary to “popular belief,” we proofreaders are not angry at mistakes or the ones who make them, nor are we out to puff up our egos by waving our “we’re right and you’re wrong” flags all over your story.

Seeking the Smooth Read

What do we really want? We just want to make the reader’s experience of a site or book or whatever, smooth and easy, and we want to avoid having that reader make negative judgments about the site and the person who’s offering the products or services based on some silly typo. These natural judgments that people make (that the person’s service lacks quality) are probably totally unjustified, but a little extra attention from a second set of eyes can be very valuable in projecting quality and gaining trust.

Yes, we and our “red pencil” really are your friend. The idea is to make your work the stuff people want to read.

Self-Publishing Cost Trade-Offs

I do understand that indie authors who are self-publishing may find it difficult to afford professional assistance in all areas of getting their books out into the world.

• Do you put your money into cover art because you can only draw stick figures, or do you put it into interior book design?
• Do you pay for upfront writing coaching or more mechanical copy editing and proofreading?
• Do you get a manuscript evaluation or pay for professional marketing help?

It can be a hard call on some of these steps.

Pros and Cons of Peer vs. Pro Editing

Whatever your other choices, I do advise against counting on yourself and your friends for all your editing-related needs. We all get blind to our own material after many rewrites for one thing, and your friends may either not have very discerning eyes or may not want to criticize your work. Yes, because they are your friends.

If I were working a book project where I wanted to save money and still get some professional attention, I’d put it into copy editing and proofreading. Your friends have a better chance of giving you value in the overall reading department (manuscript evaluation). They will likely know if they like the story and if it moved along in a way that makes sense.

Another set of eyes and brain is really crucial to fine-tuning your prose, though. An English major may or may not be necessary, but you will “get what you pay for” on this point. Someone who’s been trained to read with an editor or proofreader’s eye will be more likely to see typos, missing words, and awkward phrasings. In my experience it’s mostly inconsistencies in capitalization and term formation (to hyphenate or not to hyphenate?) that amateur proofreaders miss.

Give the Reader an Experience

Remember that the idea is to create a story so smooth to read that the reader forgets they are reading and is pulled into your world to be transformed by it. If they have to stop and scratch their heads because they can’t follow what you’re saying, or because they keep seeing typos and whatnot (credibility will suffer), then you have lost much of the impact of your story.

Editing and proofreading do affect content and results. Your book is important enough to you to invest time writing it; make sure it creates a great experience for your readers by investing in at least one professional edit.

I’ve been working on a textbook update where the client wants “copy editing” over top of the new author’s changes to the text (!!!). A bit messy to look at a marked-up copy, but I’m getting through. Doing just copy editing  on a PDF of the textbook rather than a Word manuscript does point up the substantive differences between copy editing and proofreading, though. I have to refrain from spending time on what are normally proofreading tasks.

Proofreading, which is normally done on a clean PDF copy right before printing, looks at a lot more than just spelling and grammar. We do read to see typos and such, but this is the only time we get to check the consistency of the compositor/book designer’s work as well. It’s about the whole book as presented to the reader, not just the text.

Here are some elements of a text that the proofreader is called upon to check  (and which may or may not be finalized in the manuscript) to ensure consistency across an entire document:

• Compositor mistakes like missing running heads, terms suddenly appearing in a different font or size
• Heading level errors where the revision author uses Heading 3 where the template for the content calls for Heading 2
• Heading rows in tables misaligned in different chapters
• Footnote numbers not handled consistently from one chapter to the next
• Case study template violated where one chapter only has one column, but the others have two with a standard set of questions in the left column
• References handled inconsistently for capitalization, order of names, and punctuation; easy for authors to forget and just paste in a new reference using a different style
• Consistent verbiage for information on intro and access date for website URLs in references
• Forgetting to give the spelled out version of a term with the acronym on first mention
• Formatting for source references at the bottoms of figures and tables (in my project’s case, the formatting was different in these two cases)
• Capitalization rules for units of measure
• Verifying accuracy of URLs in references (usually an extra job in my experience and one that adds cost to the job)

As you can see, there are a lot of things to check. I usually go through the text several times to look at individual issues (bigger ones to smaller ones), and if something can be checked by searching on a specific term or set of terms, I will take care of those prior to actually reading through the text. I have a good eye, but trying to see all of these things at once is almost impossible in one go.

I actually enjoy this work tremendously, especially as a break from developmental editing or book indexing. It doesn’t involve subject analysis, so my brain gets to just focus on mechanical aspects of a text. Not that proofreading is easier, necessarily, just that it uses a slightly different part of my brain.

So, I was invited to an inspirational online class by a high-energy life coach with what sounds like a great way with presentation. Looks like she speaks to hundreds at a time and really fires them up to reach their potential.

But I never got far enough to see what her presentation was like because I was stopped cold by the written copy promoting the event. Run-on sentences (I think she meant to put a period and space in, and capitalize the next word, but…), lack of detail about where and when for the event, just a feeling of her talking real quickly to everyone on short notice to join up with her, with no thought to making the promotion professional; reminded me of a really long tweet. It was very obvious that no one had looked at her material again to make sure it looked professional and had all the pertinent information for that level of access.

As a result of reading through this, I was disinclined to go further to participate or even check out prices (if any), because the initial promotion copy looked so sloppy. Several other people had already asked questions about the logistics of the event because the information was unclear.

I know I’m a proofreader, and you might say that I’m too picky, that other folks wouldn’t notice or care as long as the final presentation gives them what they are looking for. But I disagree. I think the coach here is losing new client opportunities because she isn’t taking the time to get her promotional copy right before putting it out.

Now, if this were a start-up coaching operation where the individual didn’t have the capital to invest in professional editing or proofreading, I might feel a bit of sympathy (although there would still be the problem of building credibility when your form of expression has blatant errors in it), but in this case the coach claimed that she was very successful already, so I’m pretty sure she had the resources to have her copy looked at.

I think folks often get focused on their strengths and fail to compensate for the things they aren’t so good at. Coaches in particular tend to have great people skills, awesome influence in counseling and oral presentation situations. Some of them are also good writers and pay attention to all the details of their business. But if you’re one of those “inspirationists,” as I call them, who want to focus on the content of the message, on the in-person relationships at workshops and retreats, then it’s a really important investment to build a support team who will conduct quality control on your other forms of expression, like event or course invitations, blog posts, website design, etc. If you don’t invest in the quality of your visibility (from promotional copy to your head shot photo), then a lot of people who need your services won’t get past the front door; they’ll be wondering as they stop for all the errors whether those errors are just cosmetic or a reflection of the underlying quality of the service being offered.

You don’t want them to stop and wonder; there are too many other places to go and services to check out. Please take an honest look at your online visibility creations (blogs, websites, promotional pages, etc.), and make that investment to free yourself from worrying about periods and spaces. Allow us to help you. Doesn’t have to be me, of course, but do invest in the pros who can make your true value visible. You deserve it.