Tips for proofreading your final copy.

'What do you mean, I have made a mistake;' I do not see anything wrong with the sentence: 'The only way to allow people to understand what you are writing about is to tell them what they want to no.'

Proofreading is essential for any writer.

It seems as though we (writers) have a phobia or reluctance for others to read our written work until it is successfully published and in the shops.

It's because we do not believe that we could make a mistake, because we are too careful and too pragmatic in our art; (it may also have something to do with the fact that we use Microsoft word or some other writing medium that corrects spelling mistakes and grammatical errors).

But the truth is, even a writing program does not understand our passion or the intention we have to express what we wish to say. As the example earlier, the word NO was employed instead of KNOW, but because the writing programme recognised the word NO it allowed the error to go unnoticed. Because we do not believe that we could make such a simple error we fail to check our work properly once it is written, looking only for those little red or green lines that appear under our words indicating an error.

Countless of times I have proofread my own work before inserting it on Helium, only to realise the mistakes afterwards and relying on 'leapfrog' to rectify it. But it should not happen I should not let it happen; I should read the work as I expect it to be read and understood, and not to be in such a mad rush to put my essays on the site.

I suppose the answer to our (or my) dilemma is that we are too excited to see the response from what we have written; I need to know what other people think and how my work will be rated. Little do we realise that if we ensure that our work is correct in the first instance then we will progress better on this writing site.

As much as we may not like it, it is far better to have someone else proofread our work, or to give their opinion, because they will always ask for e.g. what do you mean by that, did you really mean to write that, or even, is that how you spell - such a word.

I suppose it is a fail safe situation; we ask someone for their opinion and although their opinion may not affect the outcome of what we intend to do, it does act as a means of identifying the simple spelling or grammatical mistakes that every writer is guilty of.

But the importance is paramount when we send our work to a publisher; if there are too many spelling mistakes or grammatical errors then the manuscript will not be read, nor will it be considered for publication. It will simply be returned with a compliment slip that says; 'thank you for sending your work to us but we are not interested in that topic at the moment.'

So the best way to know if your work is OK, is to ask someone else to read it, regardless of your modesty or embarrassment; it is better to know if your work is good enough before you commit; then you can blame the publisher for not having the insight to realise what a great writer they have lost!

RECAP.

Read your work completely and thoroughly;

Have someone else read your work;

Do not rely on writing programmes to inform you of errors;

Keep writing.

After I submit this essay, I wonder whether I will be using leapfrog again.

But maybe that is part of the fun?

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