Proofreading Tips and Tricks
Proofreading is an important part of a well-versed communicator's job. A post on Ragan’s PR Daily describes how to develop great proofreading skills.
Some things you’ll always want to check:
- Missing or misspelled headers and footers, or non-sequential page numbers
- Mismatching page references in a table of contents or in the body of the text
- Bad, broken or misspelled links
- Inconsistent or incomplete instructions
- Incorrect photo captions
- Misspellings or missing labels in graphs, tables or illustrations
- Variations in style or formatting
Some tips to help you catch errors more easily:
- Read the text out loud.
- Make paragraphs smaller and sentences shorter.
- Read backward, starting with the last sentence and proceeding in reverse to the top.
- Take your time, and always read with fresh eyes.
If you have any questions about proofreading, reach out to University Relations at unews@umn.edu.