Proofreading: Your Customers' Will Find You're Misteaks

The title of this blog has three of the most common mistakes that slip through when you're proofreading your own writing: an apostrophe that is wrong (customers'), a misuse of contractions (you're) and a misspelling based on similar sounds (misteaks). Most proofreading errors arise from five causes:

• Too much reliance on your computer's spellchecker. If you spell manager m-a-n-g-e-r, your spellchecker won't pick it up.
• Any reliance at all on grammar checkers. I have yet to meet a grammar checker that gets anything right. They are useless.
• Reliance on your ear rather than your dictionary. Your ear will tell you that its, it's and its' are interchangeable. They aren't, and its' isn't even a word.
• Proofreading on the screen. You must print out copy to proofread it. You must. When I rewrite a website, I print out every page. It's too easy otherwise to overlook a missing or extra period or comma or a mistake that carries over from page to page.
• Proofreading your own writing. If you set aside anything you've written for at least 24 hours, you'll find dozens more errors than you will immediately after writing it. Proofread too soon and your eye will see what it expects to see, not what you actually wrote.

I proofread a scientific newsletter for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Many of the errors I see reflect differences in how the authors of each article treat punctuation and references--is there always a comma before "and" and do you refer to a professor by title or first name or last name or all three? Those inconsistencies are easily avoided with a style guide that sets down rules for all writers. With a style guide, a dictionary and a good grammar book (I swear by Strunk & White's classic, The Elements of Style), you too can become a super proofreader. Or email me through my website at www.twriteplus.com. I'll be glad to help.