What is proofreading?
Welcome to an Introduction to Proofreading. I’m Adrienne Montgomerie, a certified editor with nearly 30 years’ experience, and I’ll be your instructor. You can learn more about me in the last lesson.
Hit play on the video below and let’s get started! (It may take a few breaths to start, depending on the connection.)
This course used to be delivered through Archer Editorial Training, and you’ll hear their name in some of the videos.
Professional standards
Professionals aim toward professional standards. Those don’t say what is a “right” or “wrong” word usage or style. The standards don’t even apply to a particular kind of English (British, Australian, Canadian, etc.). They describe the kinds of checks required at each stage, and the kinds of knowledge and skill an editor or proofreader should have to offer professional service. Standards are put out around the world by organizations like
- Editors Canada (EC) — Professional Editorial Standards and Editing Canadian English + Niches
- Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP; formerly SfEP) [and AFEPI which is based entirely on it] — Editorial syllabus
- Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd [AUS]) — Standards for Editorial Practice
For more synthesis of the professional editorial standards around the world, check out the series.
Transcript
Welcome to an Introduction to Proofreading. I’m Adrienne Montgomerie and I’ll be your instructor with Archer Editorial Training [now SciEditor]. I’ve been editing since 1997, and I spend about halfmy time these days teaching others how to edit in publishing programs at several universities.
I’ve also published several books about editing and the skills we need to do the job.
Today we’ll talk about checking final proofs. That’s, in the industry, what we call “proofreading.” That means the final medium the test run of our product before we launch it into the world. We check it in every medium, so that means if it’s a book also checking the e-book and the printer’s proof — the first run off the printing press. We might check websites and PDFs—every single medium. It is laborious! Because we not only check the language and that all the elements are present, but we check that the design is correct as well.
One of the things we learn as professionals is how to communicate clearly with a whole team. That includes the designers and the compositors and the layout people and the writers and the advisers, and everyone. We have to make sure that everyone’s changes are incorporated correctly.
There is a handout for this webinar and I’ll prompt you when it’s time to look at that.
We will be covering several domains of knowledge because there’s a wide range of concerns when we’re proofreading, not just a grammar rules and the non-rules and the preferences but the conventions of the medium and the expectations of the audience in the format that we’re proofreading. That means the language that they’re expecting — be it a children’s book versus PhD thesis — as well as the design elements that the reader and the medium use. We also need to know when it’s OK to break convention: the difference between an outright error and an acceptable deviation from a standard. And finally will look at the hacks and tools that help proofreaders spot the errors that linger all the way through all the checks right until the final proof.
The first rule of proofreading is to “look it up.” It’s important for a proofreader to be curious and constantly check assumptions, and deviations in all of their resources. These are just some of the resources that I use every day.
Now let’s eavesdrop on a proofreader at work.