Too Scared To Take Up Designing Job Offers or Manage Social Media Platforms?

Proofread instead.

What is proofreading?

Proofreading is the act of carefully going over a draft to check for spelling, punctuation and formatting errors before publication. It involves checking for inconsistencies and typos as well.

Proofreading is not to be confused with editing. It is (usually) the final stage of the writing and editorial process, and is essential before the publication is shared with an audience. Publications usually involve journals, articles, books, posters, and the like.

“Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct production errors of text or art.[1] Proofreading is the final step in the editorial cycle before publication.” — Wikipedia.

It goes without saying that proofreading ensures that whatever is published is free of errors and comes across as professional and effective.

Is proofreading difficult and time consuming?

It totally depends on how fast you read and how many words there are in the article or book. The more words there are, the longer it will take, however, you will also be paid more.

Here are some things you can do to make your proofreading job more fun!

1. If the article is yours, edit your writing first. If it isn’t yours, then all editing and copywriting should have been checked and approved prior to the article being handed over to you for proofreading.
2. Take a break in between your reading sessions. When you’ve been reading the same book or manuscript for days, it can reduce your sensitivity towards finding errors. Take a day off and you’ll be able to reread the document better and find new typos or inconsistencies that need fixing.
3. If the document is not physical but online, more frequent breaks are essential to ensure that you do a good job. It can be very tempting to skim through the words fast because our eyes get tired a lot faster when we’re reading off the screen than off a book.
4. Try to take an interest in the journal or article that you’re proofreading. When you’re more interested, you naturally become more sensitive to mistakes because now you actually know what you’re reading about, rather than just go through line by line like an automation.
5. Make a note of recurring errors in the text. This will help you to catch them immediately the moment you come across them again.
6. If you’re reading an online article, use a spell-check and also the ‘find’ shortcut to help you edit popular mistakes in batches.

Examples of errors

Popular mistakes that I come across when doing proofreading (helping out friends):

• they/they’re/their — they’re equals to ‘they are’ which is usually followed by a verb, and is frequently confused with ‘their’, which denotes belonging(s). For example, “This car belongs to the Browns and that’s their house. They’re currently on holiday.”
• it’s/its — it’s equals to ‘it is’, for example, “That’s my cat, it’s currently sleeping”. On the other hand, ‘its’ denotes belonging(s) as well, for example, “That’s my cat, its name is Chubby. Its tail is black and white.” Another example will be “It’s Saturday,”, not “Its Saturday.”
• One popular mistake that I’ve come across countless times is that the plural form of a noun tends to be given an apostrophe sign. For example, “We’re closed Saturdays.”, meaning that particular location is closed every Saturday. “We’re closed Saturday’s.” — is completely wrong.
  Correct: “We bought a couple of pianos.”
  Incorrect: “We bought a couple of piano’s.”
  Correct: “This event is for mothers.”
  Incorrect: “This event is for mother’s.”
• There are lots more, but if you have a strong foundation in grammar — trust me, there are many people who have been speaking the English language their whole lives and yet do not know their grammar well (they may think they do because it’s their first language, but they actually don’t.)
• An interesting thing to note is to be aware of who you’re proofreading for. There are minor differences between some words used in the States and in the United Kingdom.
  For example, the word ‘advice’ is a noun in the UK, and ‘advise’ is a verb.
  “I advised her to leave her job next month, but she refused to listen to my advice.”
  However, the word ‘advise’ is not used in the USA, hence ‘advice’ represents both the noun and verb forms of the word.
  Another example of the same type will be the word ‘practice’.
  In the UK: “I practise playing the piano everyday. Practice makes perfect.”
  In the USA: “I practice playing the piano everyday. Practice makes perfect.”
• If you’re reading the document online, switching the language mode in your computer to toggle between US and UK English may help.

Do you have to niche down when it comes to proofreading?

The things that you proofread can range from full novels to promotional flyers to PhD dissertations to non-fiction journals. While you don’t have to know or understand exactly what it is you’re reading, it is good if you’re familiar with a certain genre and know what to expect from it. Otherwise, proofreading too many types of documents can lead to confusion and mistakes.

How long does it take to finish a proofreading job?

It really depends on the length of the articles. According to Scribbr, an experienced proofreader can read between 10,000 to 15,000 words a day. Long journals usually take more than a day to go through, and novels definitely takes several days.

How much is a proofreader paid?

Salary.com estimates the average hourly paid rate of a proofreader to be between $23-$33 per hour, while the Editorial Freelancers Association rates it much higher at $36-$40 per hour for a nonfiction document.

Source: salary.com

Source: Editorial Freelancers Association

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a part time job that doesn’t require too much from you in terms of research, creating and meeting strangers online, then proofreading is something you may want to consider, seeing as you are able to work from home and do it at your pace.

It requires a strong foundation in reading, writing and you generally have got to be a grammar nazi (not really, but it’ll be an added bonus) but if you enjoy it and do it well, you’ll be getting regular reading jobs and making a name for yourself in no time.

I aim to help working mothers leave their 9–5, be able to spend more time with their families and bring their skills online to start an online business. For mothers who are in the 9–5, looking to go online and start a business of your own — even if you’re aren’t ready to leave the workforce yet, but you want to start a side hustle — you can always download my free checklist that allows you to get a head start on how you can do this without going through the trials that I did. I’ll be sharing more about my journey as I transitioned from a full time professional to a near-jobless mother, to an online entrepreneur.

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