Proofreading is a must!

Released on = April 16, 2006, 1:14 pm

Press Release Author = Proofreading

Industry = Small Business

Press Release Summary = Do you understand how critical proofreading is to your
information? You must proofread to assure you release professional and accurate
information.

Press Release Body = The following summarizes the work of proofreading experts who
are completely familiar with all the aspects of proofreading. Heed their advice to
avoid any proofreading surprises.

Proofreading is an acquired skill. The following exercises will help you master it,
or at any rate will impress you with how difficult it is. Hints for successful
proofreading: Cultivate a healthy sense of doubt. If there are types of errors you
know you tend to make, double check for those. Read very slowly. If possible, read
out loud. Read one word at a time. Read what is actually on the page, not what you
think is there.

Proofread more than once. Most errors in written work are made unconsciously. There
are two sources of unconscious error: Faulty information from the kinesthetic
memory. If you have always misspelled a word like accommodate\", you will
unthinkingly misspell it again. A split second of inattention. The mind works far
faster than the pen or typewriter. It is the unconscious nature of the worst that
makes proofreading so difficult. The student who turned in a paper saying, \"I like
girdle cakes for breakfast\" did not have a perverted digestion. He thought he had
written \"griddle cakes\" and because that\'s what he was sure he had written, that\'s
what he \"saw\" when he proofread. If he had slowed down and read word by word, out
loud, he might have caught the error.

You have to doubt every word in order to catch every mistake. Another reason for
deliberately slowing down is that when you read normally, you often see only the
shells of words -- the first and last few letters, perhaps. You \"fix your eyes\" on
the print only three or four times per line, or less. You take in the words between
your fixation points with your peripheral vision, which gets less accurate the
farther it is from the point. The average reader can only take in six letters
accurately with one fixation. This means you have to fix your eyes on almost every
word you have written and do it twice in longer words, in order to proofread
accurately.

The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that
may remain. In proofreading, you can take nothing for granted, because unconscious
mistakes are so easy to make. It helps to read out loud, because 1) you are forced
to slow down and 2) you hear what you are reading as well as seeing it, so you are
using two senses. It is often possible to hear a mistake, such as an omitted or
repeated word that you have not seen. Professional editors proofread as many as ten
times. Publishing houses hire teams of readers to work in pairs, out loud. And still
errors occur. When word gets around about your command of proofreading facts, others
who need to know about proofreading will start to actively seek you out. Check out
- http://proofreading.informationvalet.com



Web Site = http://proofreading.informationvalet.com

Contact Details = Jerry Cahill||16235 49th Ave ||Seattle ,
98188||$$country||||2064312942||jc1@hotpop.com||http://proofreading.informationvalet.com

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