This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. If you use this shorthand, be sure to explain it clearly to the customer in a note. Is all of the information in your paper relevant to the assignment and/or your overall writing goal? If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you’re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques. Go for a run. Most people use the words editor and proofreader interchangeably. You’re exactly right. I generally select “All Markup” when I’m proofreading or bringing changes to a proofread document since it is the most comprehensive. You might even find that you really like it. But like it or not, the way a paper looks affects the way others judge it. To view these DOCX files correctly, you will need Microsoft Word 2007 or a more recent version. Legal Proofreading This tutorial models using the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word to proofread a sample sentence in a document. Review your own emails several times to correct any errors before hitting “Send”. 0127 SASB North Domainite is another beginner-friendly proofreading service. These 10 tips will have you proofreading like a pro in seconds. Tarshis, Barry. Great catch!! It’s better to work with a definite plan that helps you to search systematically for specific kinds of errors. It can also be an easier way to find companies that are looking for remote workers. Since proofreading is such an important step in the writing process, it helps to know a few ways to improve your proofreading skills. EditFast lets you proofread a variety of different projects. If you have five years of proofreading experience, you can submit an application to ProofreadingPal which hires two proofreaders for every piece. After taking these courses, you will be a more qualified candidate to find proofreading jobs. Wait for the file to be uploaded and then click the “Check File Type” button. We’ve corrected it. As long as we have a tendency to still write articles, books, and anything that may be browsed, there’ll be a requirement for proofreaders. EditFast lets you proofread a variety of different projects. Proofread Anywhere is founded by Caitlin Pyle, who created a proofreading business by sharing her expertise to help the next generation of proofreaders (including you) to succeed. Experiment with different tactics until you find a system that works well for you. Medical transcription is in high demand because it’s an advanced skill. Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences? Open up Word and go to the Review tab as shown in a screenshot. Lane, Janet, and Ellen Lange. In fact, it’s where I started my freelance career. Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. (919) 962-7710 Clients submit their finished, unedited documents and you proofread them. OneSpace is an all-in-one editing and proofreading service. Thanks for the insight! I’ve done some proofreader jobs on paper over manuscripts! If you enjoy other portions of the publishing process, you can also apply for one of their other work at home positions. Their application process is fairly simple as you only have to correct a writing sample and submit your contact information. This handout contains seven errors our proofreader should have caught: three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors. Step 2 Click the “Review” tab. As a note, sometimes it’s hard to indicate that a space should be added in PDF texts. 2. Writing Clearly: Grammar for Editing. You will get paid to edit the written works from the various Life Tips authors. Transcript proofreading is more technical, and, pays more as a result. Do you repeat a strong word (for example, a vivid main verb) unnecessarily? Kibin is an on-demand proofreading service for a nearly any written specialty. EditFast. Your most lucrative opportunities will be proofing and editing, but, you can also make money by performing data entry or product research. (For additional tips, see our handouts on understanding assignments and developing an argument. Here, I'll present a checklist that you can print and use when you are proofreading your own document. You don’t need to be an English major to become an online proofreader, your previous training can give you a head start. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. Each example has three parts: "Before" – This is the original document that has been submitted Life Tips is constantly hiring editors to join their staff as their business and audience are constantly growing. Can someone who did a lot of medical transcription and proofreading break into this field? Working on a hard copy is still the most surefire way to spot errors in a document. While budget-conscious writers are happy to use free grammar checking tools like Grammarly to make corrections, these free services will not fix every problem. Let us know in the comments if you have worked any online proofreader jobs or editing jobs and what worked best for you. While editors can work from anywhere, the SmartBrief corporate offices are in Washington D.C. and New York if you might also be interested in a full-time position as well. That’s awesome that you can find the “oops!” It’s also why I’m not a professional proofreader. Two of the basic requirements include: No formal training or previous proofreading experience is required to hop onboard Cactus Communications. There are a lot of avenues to pursue here. Before You Proofread Be sure you’ve revised the larger aspects of your text. Have you ever wondered where the word ‘proofreader’ comes from? There might also be a Show Meta Data button which displays more information for media files. This can be an excellent part-time income that can gradually be turned into a full-time income as your skills improve. This handout provides some tips and strategies for revising your writing. While some proofreaders are only charging $5 per gig, other highly-ranked proofreaders are charging up to $200 per piece. I would like to try some of the tests here to see how I would do. Here’s another reason you might enjoy OneSpace, they offer free next-day PayPal payments for every completed job! If you have ever needed help on an assignment or needed an online tutor, you might have visited IXL Learning. This is about to go to print. Otherwise, I find mistakes everywhere, even cookbooks. To check the permission configuration of a file, use the command: ls –l [file_name] For instance, the command for the previously mentioned file would be: ls –l test.txt. Next, you’ll need to know how to track changes. You might consider TranscribeMe as one of your first considerations, but there are many options. Then you should download or go to certain websites to check and see if you had any spelling or punctuation errors. 1. To give you a chance to practice proofreading, we have left seven errors (three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors) in the text of this handout. Plus this is one of the simplest work from home jobs you can start as a side hustle, grow to part-time, and perhaps full-time. 5th ed. Having your own website is the easiest way to build an online presence so you can begin building relationships that can lead to future proofreading jobs. Try to find them, and then check a version of this page with the errors marked in red to see if you’re a proofreading star. That’s how most career transitions happen. One way to check the structure of your paper is to make a reverse outline of the paper after you have written the first draft. As a high-authority educational platform for a variety of academic subjects, error-free content is vital. Take a trip to the beach. Position openings continually change and you might be able to find proofreading jobs for academic editing and even medical writing. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications. Is the argument complete? He has been featured in the US News and World Report, Student Loan Hero, and more. Don’t make corrections at the sentence and word level if you still need to work on the focus, organization,… Is your use of gendered language (masculine and feminine pronouns like “he” or “she,” words like “fireman” that contain “man,” and words that some people incorrectly assume apply to only one gender—for example, some people assume “nurse” must refer to a woman) appropriate? It is easy to proofread in Word. Auto-correct strikes again, huh? When it comes to publishing a book, there are several different levels of editing that happen before a proofreader looks at a book.. Developmental Editing happens first. ), Does your paper have an appropriate introduction and conclusion? One or all of the following tips can help you catch mistakes before your document is submitted: Stepping away from your work. Hi Peggy. That means you don’t have to spend time bidding or pitching to clients. Have you supported each point with adequate evidence? If you are just getting started, Upwork can be an excellent place to start to build up your skills while you build an online presence. Some of these will be specific to you, while others will be more general. To edit/proofread your essay/paper, first read it and make sure it makes sense. It’s hard to edit or proofread a paper that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still to familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. As you edit at all of these levels, you will usually make significant revisions to the content and wording of your paper. 3rd ed. Josh is a personal finance writer with his prior professional experience as a transportation operations supervisor for an S&P 500 company. New York: Longman, 2006. These are great tips! General Proofreading . That’s great to hear. Good catch, Teddy! We just can’t help ourselves! If you pass the test, you can expect competitive pay that exceeds the normal hourly U.S. proofreading wage. Then give it a try, if you haven’t already! One way to listen to a document is to open Google Translate, then copy and paste a selected piece of text into the left box. You create your profile listing your proofreading skills and prices. If you like the idea of editing books, Kirkus Media can be an exciting opportunity. Proofreading Tips. 3rd ed. Are your citations in the correct format? A new tab will open with the required information about what the file’s type really is. To do this, use an old proofreader’s mark, the hashtag, which # means “add a space.”. In addition to reviewing for correct spelling and usage, make sure that all the information in your text is accurate and up to date. For example, you must hold a Master’s degree, Ph.D., or equivalent professional experience. Proofreading tips. You must have an undergraduate degree and at least three years of editing, writing, or language-teaching experience. Get some distance from the text! SmartBrief hires editors, writers, and content developers to offer curated business news. One of the more lucrative opportunities can be Scribe Media. Several writing style guides (APA, AMA, Chicago Style, etc. Think about Editing: An ESL Guide for the Harbrace Handbooks. Does each paragraph stick to one main idea? And, you must own a PC with a copy of Microsoft Word 2010 (or newer). It’s recommended that you have at least three years of editing experience to be considered for most of the Managed Editing projects. Review a hard copy. Proofreading might be an excellent income-making opportunity if you find yourself doing any of these behaviors on a regular basis: As long as we continue to write articles, books, and anything else that can be read, there will be a demand for proofreaders. Campus Box #5135 Print out your text and review it line by line. There are many different ways you can make money while you work from home as a proofreader. It’s worth paying attention to the details that help you to make a good impression. You should try to proofread a paper copy of the document instead of proofreading on a computer screen. It’s free to get started on Fiverr which makes it another excellent option to build experience when you are starting from scratch. View samples of our proofreading and editing work. There’s something very wrong with your second sentence. Sorry! You choose which niches you want to proofread and Kibin will send those articles your way. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2006. (See our handouts on introductions, conclusions, thesis statements, and transitions. Every day it seems like I find a new way to make money from home that I can pursue if I want to! Little by little, you replace your daytime income with your freelance income. He paid off $80,000 in consumer debt and uses his experience of getting out of debt and changing careers to write about many personal finance topics including making money, saving money and investing. How to Be Your Own Best Editor: The Toolkit for Everyone Who Writes. ), Reference library of works similar to what you will proofread. Chapel Hill, NC 27599 While you might not necessarily work for your local newspaper or the largest of publishing companies that print the works of authors like James Patterson, Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, you can still be proofread books, articles, and documents that many eyes will still read. Proofreading is about more than good manners. When you’ve worked hard to develop and present your ideas, you don’t want careless errors distracting your reader from what you have to say. Despite being an excellent freelancer opportunity, not everybody can become a Scribendi proofreader. Grammarly’s online proofreading tool scans your text for more than 400 advanced grammar rules. The below resources can help you optimize your efforts so you can spend less time looking for clients and more time proofreading! You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Writing Center You can edit on several levels: Have you done everything the assignment requires? Another freelance platform to check out is Fiverr. I’ve worked from home for two years and I hope I never have to go back to the corporate world again. Searching for clients on Indeed can be more lucrative as you might be able to secure work with a client that offers a higher salary and might even include benefits. Many bloggers love to hire freelance editors for copyediting and proofreading jobs. We are sorry. Since proofreading is a remote job (anywhere with an internet connection), you can work as many hours as you want. For some positions, you may need a relevant graduate degree and professional experience. Read your paper aloud. According to ProofreadingPal, you can earn between $500 to $3,000 per month on average depending on how many articles you critique. Here are some tips. Your tasks can include editing dissertation papers, detecting plagiarism, generating APA references, and glossing over articles that will be published in the Scribbr knowledge base. Is your thesis clearly stated in your introduction? Prior experience is necessary to be hired. One technique that the majority of professional proofreaders use is to read the writing they are proofreading out loud. This makes the entire writing proccess more efficient. Proofread Word documents are corrected using the Track Changes option with a second document generated that contains the accepted modifications. Stay in the know with our newsletter or join our Facebook community, Tips for Becoming a Successful Proofreader, Having a bachelor’s degree from an American, British or English-speaking university, Being able to edit at least 10,000 words per week. Not exactly. ), Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? You can offer to proofread a variety of documents from college essays to professional publications like eBooks and promotional material. If you want a work at home job that pays weekly, Domainite can fit the bill as they will send you PayPal cash each week. You should proofread only after you have finished all of your other editing revisions. To proofread a document is to carefully read it to find any errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar, so they can be corrected before publishing. Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation. Step 1 Open Word and open the document to use with proofreader marks. According to the current job listings, you will need an extensive knowledge of the Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam-Webster, and Microsoft Word. Does your writing contain a lot of unnecessary phrases like “there is,” “there are,” “due to the fact that,” etc.? This might be the first time you have ever heard that you can get paid to work at home as a proofreader. One of the most comprehensive places to start is Proofread Anywhere. See if you can spot them! Is it clear how each paragraph in the body of your paper is related to your thesis? * Check common errors - scour the document for problems that come up again and again, e.g. Polished Paper is another flexible portal that lets you proofread papers written in a variety of styles from APA to Chicago and anything in between. As seen in the image above, the output provides the following information: file permission; Upwork is one of the largest freelancer platforms that lets you get paid for a variety of tasks from freelance writing, graphic design, and proofreading. You might also consider looking for proofreader positions on Indeed. Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence? You can bid on proposals to proofread sales brochures, grant proposals, scientific research papers, and eBooks. Proofread documents in other formats are returned in various ways, including but not limited to, a separate Word document listing the errata. I don’t see why not. Thank you for the feedback. If I was required to proofread against copy, the parcel would also include the galley proofs (a printed copy of the pages of raw text supplied by the author on which the copy-editor had marked initial corrections). Most people devote only a few minutes to proofreading, hoping to catch any glaring errors that jump out from the page. Regress to childhood and follow each word you read with your finger. Have you made clear transitions between paragraphs? Use these tools as a first scan. Paper proofreading is an expensive business before the publisher has even paid the editorial freelancer’s invoice. Searching job boards can require a little more hustle, but, the financial payoff can be well worth the extra effort. Scribendi offers work-from-home proofreading jobs where they select assignments that will interest you. They only hire on an as-needed basis, so you will have to check back periodically if they do not have any job openings at the moment. It doesn’t matter if it’s proofreading or one of the many other income streams we recommend on WKW. You will see a sound icon; click it to have the text being read to you. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. Can you always spot when someone doesn’t dot their i’s or cross their t’s? This will encourage you to look carefully at each word as you read it and, by reading the sentences aloud, you will be able to hear how they actually sound. While they are not always in need of a proofreader, you can comb through their openings to see if any proofreading jobs are available at the moment. It would be something different and a change in pace. If you are hired, you will proof the document with one other writer to ensure every error has been corrected. If you notice that you’ve repeatedly misspelled a particular word, inconsistently capitalized a term, or switched between UK and US English, you can use the Find and Replace function to fix the same mistake throughout the document. Select the file, or files, that you want to check in, then select Check in. Proofreading isn’t just about reviewing the text. Ascher, Allen. When you are editing an early draft, you don’t want to be bothered with thinking about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Check page numbering, column alignment, relative fonts, sizes, and other features of standard elements such as headlines, subheadings, captions, and footnotes. Plus, you can name your own hours which can be the main reason you are looking to make money from home, right? You spot typos in nearly any online article, book, or restaurant menu you read. * Take your time - if possible, create some distance between you and the document by leaving time between writing and proofreading. There are more writers than proofreaders, and that means there is always a demand from paid proofreaders. But a quick and cursory reading, especially after you’ve been working long and hard on a paper, usually misses a lot. They might not always be advertising proofreader positions, but when they do, you can earn $3,000 per project. While some jobs do require you to work in a corporate office, they do offer several telecommute jobs as well. Is the meaning of each sentence clear? Make sure that the document design adheres to established specifications. Clients from every background are looking for skilled proofreaders. Proofreading jobs are not always listed, so check back periodically when you can take on more work. This forces you to voice every single word and involves your auditory senses in the process, meaning that … Most obviously, run a spell check – but don’t rely on the computer to catch every mistake. The examples are sectioned into each individual service so you'll find them easier to find. Have you defined any important terms that might be unclear to your reader? It is easier to catch errors on paper than on a computer screen. Read our Advertiser Disclosure. Content is important. If so, you can put your keen eyes to use as a proofreader. I greatly appreciate the many avenues for proofreading presented in this article. Print it out (on scrap paper), walk away from the distractions of your desk and give it all your attention. Lanham, Richard A. Revising Prose. Having experience editing documents translated by non-native speakers or editing experience in specialized subjects such as medical, technical, novels, and patents will also improve your chances of being selected for a new project. (One way to answer this question is to read your paper one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working backwards so that you will not unconsciously fill in content from previous sentences.) Print the paper using a larger font (e.g. If you’re looking at a view of the library on another page, you may have to click the title of the library first. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Managed Editing will connect you with clients to proofread technical writing some of the following topics: Pay is hourly and you will be hired as an independent contractor. You probably already use some of the strategies discussed below. Read each word slowly. There isn’t a “job bank” at Proofread Anywhere, but, you can learn the skills to secure clients in any proofreading niche. It makes sense when we know the etymology of the word ‘proof’, and that it comes from the Latin probare, to test or prove. It’s possible to find local clients and national companies that hire remote workers, too. Einsohn, Amy. You can also select “Show Markup” under the “Markup” dropdown (see first screenshot from this section) to customize exactly what you would like to see. Since you’ll work from home (or anyplace with an online connection), you’ll work as many hours as you would like. You may have to do this in "batches" for longer documents. They are different, however, and have distinct roles.